Evnironmental Estrogens

Have you ever heard of that term? I hadn't until recently while reading a book recommended to me by my sister-in-law. It's called "Boys Adrift". I am really enjoying this book. There is one chapter that discusses how plastics release environmental estgrogens and the effects it has on girls and boys. The book is about boys with little bits about girls to explain the differences. I of course am interested being the mother of three boys.

A long time ago I read a different book that convinced me to eliminate all hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup from our diet. It felt so drastic to me that I pretty much ignored the information about plastics. He recommended that the only safe thing to use to wrap food in was wax paper.

After reading "Boys Adrift" it makes me want to eliminate all plastics from my home and yet that sounds so impossible. Granted he does say if you use them to not reheat your food in them. Something I had heard but didn't put much credit in until now.

Basically the author talks about 5 different factors as to why boys today are unmotivated. The environmental estrogens fall into the Endocrine Disruptor's chapter. I have in the past 4 years read different articles here and there about things like the state of the fish in our waters today. One article I read convinced me that perhaps the problems with the fish (male fish now carrying eggs not sperm) was due to our use of antibacterial soaps. I have since quit using antibacterial soaps. Dr. Sax, the author of "Boys Adrift", explains that the plastics mimic estrogen. This is why our girls are maturing more rapidly and why our boys are taking longer to hit puberty.

He says that they tested pregnant women and found the plastics in their urine and then tested the babies and of course they had it too. They also said that there are more genital deformities in boys because of this. He talked about all the plastics we give babies, bottles, pacifiers etc. Basically everything for babies is plastic because it's easy to clean and won't break.

This made me think of my kids and their addictions to pacifiers. I freely let them suck on those plastic things all the time. I breast fed my babies for the most part but they did get occasional bottles and we had lots of sippy cups after.

He also mentioned that many sealants that kids get on their teeth have these bad plastics in them. Of course my kids have sealants but I never thought to ask about the type of material it was they put on their little teeth. I'm planning on asking my dentist but don't know what I can do if they are the bad plastic.

Phthalates is the name of the plastic you don't want. He recommends looking for products lableled "PVC-FREE".

I just found this book totally fascinating and thought I'd share a bit with anyone who might glance at my blog. It's all a bit overwhelming but makes sense to me. It also made me want to find an all boys school for my kids too, though it's not gonna happen. I can see why it would be beneficial. To all my friends who have boys I would recommend giving this book a read.

Little T

Sam loves these old school books at the library that are about letters. Each book is about a character named after the letter it represents and each character has a box into which it puts things that also start with the letter. He's been getting these books for two years now and still enjoys them. They are boring to me and to Jack as well as he apparently as he made his own version of the story tonight. We were reading about Little M who found some monkeys and mice and put them into his box but the monkeys didn't like the mice . . .

Then I hear Jack saying "Little T found some turds and put them into his box" He's giggling and laughing a bit and I'm trying hard not to but I must admit that there are times when potty humor gets me going too and Jack was doing a pretty good job. He continues "The little turds try to run away but a tornado tackles them and then Little T flushes them down the Toilet" By now the boys are full on belly laughing and I can't hide my smile any longer.

Silly boys.

When will I ever grow up.