It's not all bad news... there's Sophie la girafe...

I lot of my posts lately have been negative things, like how bad BPA is, how bad Johnson & Johnson baby products are, etc... so I thought I better tell you the good news... there are some nice companies out there who are making safe products for kids :-)

A few weeks ago I took my son to visit our friend Katie from We Heart Books (a fantastic blog and online shop that reviews and recommends books for kids) who had a stall at the Magnolia Square Market when it was in Melbourne. He fell in love with Sophie la girafe aka Sophie the Giraffe. Sophie is a french childhood icon. According to the lovely ladies from Les Folies (the Australian distributors of Sophie) she is the only teething toy in the world made from 100% natural rubber and non toxic paint. Sophie is hand made in France today exactly as she was when first produced back in 1961.

You can get Sophie in Australia from Les Folies. The rest of the world can order Sophie the Giraffe on Amazon, where she is the #1 top selling item for babies!

There was lots of other cool stuff at Magnolia Square, I especially loved the recycled designs of Y Knot? and the divinely cute baby clothes (organic cotton and bamboo of course) from Green Bean a New Zealand-based company.

We Heart Books and Y Knot? are at the Magnolia Square event in Sydney that's on now at the teahouse at Randwick Racecourse Friday 3 July 10am-5pm and Saturday 4 July 10am - 4pm ... the first 500 guests each day will receive a goodie bag. Sophie the Giraffe will be back in Melbourne from 6-8 August at the Magnolia Square event at the Malvern Town Hall.

while I fry an organic egg...

So we started the official 6 month pre-conception detox on Monday, and I've been wanting to blog about it but feeling overwhelmed about where to start and therefore have been doing nothing... so I thought I'd do a super-fast, while I fry an egg post to get started. It's all about baby-steps. I might end up doing a bunch of mini-posts, since I seem to be much better at micro-blogging on twitter these days at the expense of my real blog...
so here's my tip-of-the-day.

When preparing for conception, and during pregnancy and breastfeeding it is essential to maintain good supplies of iron. A lot of iron supplements aren't easily absorbed and/or make you constipated... thankfully I've found one that works beautifully, it's called Spatone, and it's simply spa water from Wales (from the spa in the picture) that's naturally very high in iron. One small sachet can be taken in water or juice, and is safe for kids over 2 years old. Pregnant women can get enough iron by taking two sachets a day. I love that it is so simple and natural, and it comes from a company that I have used and trusted for a long time, Martin & Pleasance, which also makes Rescue Remedy, a wonderful combination of Bach Flower Remedies that helped me through my law exams and helped my husband with his fear of flying!

Iron is essential to the body for many reasons, not least of which is that it helps carry oxygen around your body! Pregnant women need at least twice as much iron as the rest of us, and growing children need a lot of iron too. I would not hesitate to recommend Spatone to anyone and everyone! Stay tuned for more info on what supplements I'm using to support my body during my mindful period of pre-conception health optimization!

p.s. I actually fried an egg, ate it, fried another egg, ate that too, and I'm still going... so much for short posts...

p.p.s I have no association with Spatone or Martin and Pleasance whatsover, however if they want to send me some free stuff to review I won't complain! ;-)

One Angry Organic Mama!

My husband said to me last night, you don't sound like yourself in your blogposts, you sound so angry! I'm generally a very peaceful, calm, loving person. But the things that have been coming through my inbox over the last few days have got me pretty fired up! The latest is a story that was broken by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) when they were sent a leaked memo from a meeting that suggested that Coke, Del Monte, and other food and chemical lobbyist were plotting to deceive the American public about the safety of Bisphenol A (BPA).

For more info, read EWG's article: "Coca-Cola and Del Monte Caught in Plot to Deceive Moms and Minorities Over Dangers of BPA" or read the actual BPA Joint Trade Association Minutes from Meeting on Communications Strategy. This is smoking-gun kinda stuff reminiscent of some of the memos that came out in litigation against Tobacco companies... they know that they have no chance of getting a real scientist to stand-up and support the "benefits" of BPA, so they are looking for a "pregnant young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA.” They also want to target minorities and the poor, who can't afford to buy fresh food that doesn't use BPA in it's packaging, and they want to befriend "people that are able to manipulate the legislative process." Seriously. If you are half as outraged as I am, let's tell Coke and Del Monte that the world will not stand by and let them pull the wool over our eyes.

P.S. Great work Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post for bring this to the attention of the world's mass media, and Nena Baker from the Huffington Post for bringing it to the Attention of the blogosphere. EWG has a great blog called Enviroblog, which posts regularly on environmental connections to public health... check it out :-)

No More Tears... until baby grows up and gets cancer!

I have a whole stack of new posts in the works, but in the meantime, I'm going to "borrow" this one below from The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which is a fantastic non-profit. See the original post for more links and footnotes, and a chance to tell Johnson & Johnson what you think!

"Last month the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and partner organizations released a report revealing that dozens of popular bath products for babies and kids contain at least two hazardous contaminants: 1,4-dioxane and formaldehyde.

Both of these chemicals cause cancer in animals, and formaldehyde is also known to cause skin rashes in people who are sensitive to the chemical. Parents around the world were particularly infuriated that Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, the iconic brand that many hospitals send home with new babies, contained both of these contaminants – neither of which are listed on ingredient labels.

The story was covered across the United States, around the world and online. Concerned moms called Johnson & Johnson – and then blogged about the company’s dismissive response.

Of the report, J&J said, “The trace levels of certain compounds found by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics can result from processes that make our products gentle for babies and safe from bacteria growth,”2 and the Campaign should stop “alarming” parents.

We think parents have a right to know if the products they buy for their babies contain hazardous chemicals linked to cancer and skin rashes. Other companies are making safe and gentle baby products without hazardous chemicals.3 Instead of playing defense, J&J should live up to its promises of purity and be the safest, most responsible company it can be."

If you're as infuriated as I am about all this, then don't forget to click here to tell Johnson & Johnson that it is not ok to put carcinogens and irritants in baby products!

ok, so here's the deal...

The reason why I have an organic baby blog, and an organic personal care products online shop is because I am passionate about creating a non-toxic world right now. Not just for future generations, but right now, for all of us, today. It's not that hard really, we all just have to stop buying so much toxic stuff. Stop buying toxic stuff altogether actually. Even the non-toxic stuff usually creates toxins in the packaging, shipping, consuming, disposing cycle... so stop buying so much stuff.

Is now a good time for me to plug my business?

We've recently acquired some baby chickens. We are raising them so that they will make organic free range eggs for us, and amuse us with their chicken shenanigans... anyway, I have been spending a lot of time thinking and researching what to feed them so that they will be nice healthy, happy organic chicks... so for a little while this might become Annie's Organic Baby (Chicken) Blog...

But I digress. I've been thinking about my chicks and thinking about how people sometimes put more effort into keeping their pets healthy than keeping their children (or for that matter themselves) healthy... would you feed your cat a caffeinated cola beverage? would you feed your puppy chocolate milk? I sat next to a couple on an international flight recently who gave their two year old some pepsi and then had to drug him with an antihistamine (which has been banned in a number of countries by the way!) to get him to sleep during the 14 hour flight! (Still digressing, well, just plain ranting now.)

Here's the thing. If you are going to spend your hard-earned money on products for your baby's skin (most of which they don't need anyway) then

please do not fall for the mass-marketing machinery of evil multinational companies who will make you feel good about products that use words like "gentle" "calming" soothing" "natural" and "organic" so that you will pay twice as much

as necessary for the same old petroleum-based, preservative-laden, unnecessarily-fragranced items. Really.

Read the labels really really carefully. if you wouldn't eat any of the ingredients then don't buy them. Buy nothing. Use water. use olive oil. They don't need much more. If you want more, then look for a product that is certified organic to food grade standards. There will be a logo from an independent certifying body, such as the USDA. Look for a product that does not contain any essential oils, even if they are organic, most of them are not safe for little babies.

Look for a product that does not contain nut oils (they may be contributing to the increase in nut allergies). There is only one line of baby products that I know of that is certified organic, and has no essential oils or nut oils. That's miessence (which is why that's the only thing that I sell in my online shop). If you know of another line that meets those three essential criteria, then please leave a comment or email me, as I'd love to let people know about them.

xxx
Annie

do I really want a girl?

So I got bored with all the cervical mucus and basal body temperature stuff (I will go back and read it, after I finish reading the juicy bits) and skipped ahead to the "How to have a girl" chapter of How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby: Fully revised and updated. Basically, it's harder to make girls than boys, unless your husband is really toxic and your vagina is really acidic. The science behind this is real, but more than I feel like explaining right now, other than to say that the "girl sperm" are much hardier than the "boy sperm" so they survive better under hostile conditions, such as hot, cramped tighty whities, men who spend lots of time underwater (scuba divers) or in the air (pilots and astronauts) or men with toxic jobs, such as anesthesiologists apparently. So basically, if we want to have a girl, DH can try to kill off all the "boy sperm" by being rather hot and toxic, or I can try to kill them off by being acidic...

top 10 things I am doing differently this time around...

As many of you know, my husband and I did a four month detox before getting pregnant with our son, almost four years ago! Something must have worked because we got pregnant right away :-) It's time to start preparing for #2, so we are gearing up for another detox. This time it's going to be SIX LONG MONTHS of no caffeine, no alcohol, no dairy, no wheat, etc etc. Why the longer detox? The theory we used for the first one is that

it takes roughly four months for eggs and sperm to "mature" before conception,

so you want your body to be in peak condition during those four months.

The fatal flaw in our plan was that we STARTED the detox four months before conception, but that doesn't mean we were detoxed for four months... it takes a while... in fact, we can never be truly detoxed in modern society... even Indigenous Peoples living in the Arctic have a body burden of PCBs, VOCs, and other POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants - the wrong kind of organic), that are in our air and water and fish that no one can avoid unless we move to another planet, in which case we will receive a mega dose of cosmic radiation. (Another thing I am doing differently this time is that I am not going to fly while pregnant).

So the problem is that doing a four month detox is not enough, because you spend the first few weeks/months being MORE TOXIC than usual, as your body flushes everything from your system... so you need a buffer period to get out as many of the toxins as you can so that you can have four months of being as clean as possible.

So, off the top of my head (but with years of thought and research put into it), these are the things that we are doing differently in the lead up to making baby #2:

1. I will start detoxing six months before conception instead of four.
2. I will not fly on an airplane for six months before conception (or during pregnancy - I flew from Australia to America, across America four times and then back to Australia while I was pregnant with #1- that's a lot of cosmic radiation!)
3. I have had my mercury amalgam fillings removed well before starting the detox for #2 (I had two such toxic fillings during #1's conception and pregnancy).
4. I am not going to drive in a new car during my detox or pregnancy (we bought a new car just before #1 was born, so he spent his first few years inhaling a cocktail of VOCs and other nasty off-gassings).
5. I'm not working in a job that stresses me out, or with people that stress me out. Stress hormones are not good for babies (or mothers-to-be).
6. I'm getting bioresonance therapy with a Bicom2000 machine from the lovely Michele at Recharge Life in Melbourne. Bioresonance therapy is one of the few modalities that can help eliminate allergies and food intolerances.
7. I'm cutting way down on the naturally-occurring food chemicals in my diet, such as amines and salicylates, that I now know I am sensitive to.
8. I'm going to get a filter for my shower and bath so that I am not inhaling and absorbing so much chlorine when I bathe... if anyone can recommend some good filters then please leave a comment!
9. I'm not going to get any ultrasounds/sonograms during my pregnancy. I know I can have a healthy baby, I don't care if it's a boy or a girl (see previous post) and if it's twins the midwives will be able to tell soon enough.
10. I'm going to spend more time in the sun. Baby and me need our vitamin D!