The above line comes from a lecture Sky and I attended last night given by Dr. Sandra Steingraber. Her intent was to better help us understand the vast array of chemical toxins currently residing in our environment as well as furthering our awareness to the impact those toxins have on our bodies, from pre-pregnancy through old age. Dr. Steingraber is a biologist by trade with an specialty in studies relating to the influence of chemical toxins in our environment. She had bladder cancer at a young age; I speculate that this has led to her ability to humanize and clearly explain in her writing as to how our bodies are being affected by the chemicals we consume throughout our daily living. She wrote two books of interest to me, Living Downstream: A Scientist's Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment and Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood
In her talk last night, Dr. Steingraber began by talking about the current chemical regulation system and their guidelines used when determining a "safe level of toxicity." The example used for this lecture was Altrazine, a common pesticide used in California agriculture. She outlined how this pesticide interrupts the photosynthesis of common weeds in addition to being highly water-soluble (to be better able to get into the inner workings of the cells of the weeds), thus also easily crossing into a local water supply in addition to being highly absorbable into our own bodies. Dr. Steingraber explained that this particular toxin is a hormone disruptor; changing normal human cell function by way of making a human body create too much estrogen. If I remember the numbers right, she said that the accepted toxicity level was 3 parts per billion. My question after hearing this was, how many combined parts per billion do all the fertilizers and pesticides residing in our bodies add up too? What is happening to our bodies, the bodies of our children, as all these "safe levels" of chemical toxins mix up inside us?
Then she went on to describe the effects of specific chemical toxins on a growing fetus. From the chemical influences on a woman's individual egg and a man's sperm potency to the hormonal influences interrupting implantation; each step is beginning to be closely studied as more and more pregnancies are being challenged by the increasing numbers and amounts of chemical toxins. Of interest to me was the subject of the placenta acting as a magnifier when transporting energy to the baby. Dr. Steingraber used the example of mercury. She cited studies showing when scientists compared an amount of mercury in a mother's bloodstream after consuming a tuna fish sandwich, something that is very well known to contain measurable amounts of mercury, to the amount of mercury in the umbilical blood cord, the umbilical blood amount will always be higher then the mother's own blood count. Dr. Steingraber attributed this magnification to the placenta falsely recognizing mercury to be an essential element, similar to iodine or calcium, thus believing it to be important to pass onto the growing baby.
The lecture I attended was partially sponsored by Planned Parenthood. So there were many right to choosers in the crowd. I think I speak for many of us when I say that Dr. Steingraber cleverly brought both sides of the abortion discussion together by pointing out that many cases of pregnancy are abruptly ended because either a mother's pregnancy hormones have been negatively affected at a critical point in a pregnancy or a embryo has been prevented from successful implantation with a result of an unwelcome spontaneous abortion. Dr. Steingraber pointed out that all women deserve the right to choose to be pregnant and not to be prevented from successfully completing a healthy pregnancy by the growing amounts of chemicals in our living environment.
Another point of interest to me was the information she gave about the infant blood/brain barrier. A human body is very good at circulating food, waste, and other various things throughout the whole system, but if blood containing very strong toxic chemicals directly infuses with brain tissue, then neurons and pathways become harmed. Therefore, our body grows a barrier between the circulatory system and brain tissue to protect our developing intelligence. However, this barrier does not fully complete its development until a human is about six months old. In the meantime, all kinds of substances have full access to a child's growing intelligence. I think this is interesting when viewed in combination with a growing parenting consensus that most babies should not receive solid foods until they are closer to 6 months, rather then the old thought of 4 months. Not only is a babies' digestive tract more ready to absorb the nutrients and the motor skills of the mouth and throat more organized, but now we can also say that a baby is better able to fend off the influx of chemicals that so much of our un-organic food now contains.
I enjoyed this lecture very much. I had read Having Faith when I was pregnant with Sky. I admired how well Dr. Steingraber was able to unite so much scientific lingo with a very creative writing style. Her book was very well researched, yet also very interesting to read. Sky attended this lecture with me and I think he enjoyed himself as well. We were out well past his normal bedtime, yet he was very active as he looked around at all the people. Once Dr. Steingraber began her talk, I walked around the back of the room with him in the sling until he fell asleep and I could return to my seat (also near the back).