Organic Baby Clothing is Safer - Toxic Chemical From Dyes in Textiles Can Be Absorbed Through Your Child’s Skin

Are There Dangerous Chemicals in Children’s Clothing?
Clothing made from traditional textiles is laden with chemicals; children’s clothing even more so, since, in addition to synthetic dyes, many children’s clothing items have flame retardant chemicals added to the mix. How can this not be bad for our kids? And these are not merely the worried rantings of a paranoid mother, there is sold research to support my concern.

CNN Article on Toxins and Body Burden Testing
I recently ran across an excellent, yet entirely scary, CNN press release dating back to 2007 about the high levels of toxic chemicals in children's bodies revealed through laboratory testing. The piece was about body burden testing, which I’d never heard of. What I read was shocking.

The story featured a family who has participated in a study to measure the level of industrial chemicals in their bodies. The results of their biomonitoring tests revealed that the couple's two children had chemical body burdens 7x that of their parents, and that their 18-month-old was loaded with industrial chemicals, including the flame retardant polybrominated diphenyl ester (PBDEs), at two to three times the levels found to cause thyroid cancer in rats.

What Do the Experts Say Environmental Toxins?
The scientists that were interviewed for the article had differing opinions. One, a Mount Sinai Medical Center physician, considered the use of these little understood chemicals in clothing to be unconscionable, stating that humans are currently part what he called an ‘unnatural experiment.’ The president of the American Council on Science and Health disagreed, offering that detecting chemicals is not the same as proving they are a hazard.

What Does this Expert Say?
Well, I am a scientist too, trained in biology, and here is my opinion. I have not read the studies on rats and PBDEs, nor have I participated in any research on the dangers of environmental toxins, but you don’t have to be a scientist in order to have common sense.

I say, what does it hurt to err on the side of caution? There are many relatively new chemicals used in textiles, and their long-term effect on human health is not yet known. I don’t need to wait for an official study to come out to decide that, “Hey, maybe organic clothing and bedding, made from textiles that do not contain all of these chemical, are safer for my kids.”

Are Your Children Dressed to Ill
Our skin, and the skin of our developing children, does absorb chemicals. Even if you take a conservative stance of the potential danger here, the clothing and bedding choices that we make for our families certainly have the potential to positively or negatively impact their health. Fabrics made from organically grown cotton and colored with natural dyes, don’t possess these potential hazards. Let’s dress our kids to be healthy, not ill.

Stay tuned. Over the next few weeks I will be contributing additional articles on toxins used in textiles and how these chemicals differ from those used in natural clothing, as well as making recommendations about which types of organic clothing are essential, for those not ready to spring for an entire new natural wardrobe for baby.

Do you have any opinions or experiences with textile toxins and your family’s health? Please post a comment and start a discussion!