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A review by kellyholmes
Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood by Sandra Steingraber
5.0
I highly recommend this to parents and even anyone who's just thinking about having children one day. The book reads alternatively like a science book and a memoir, and I really enjoyed the marriage of the two. The "science" parts are done in a way that makes them relatively easy to understand, and they're interspersed with stories of the author's own experiences being pregnant and mothering her daughter in the first couple years of her life.
But what I most enjoyed about this book was the frankness about environmental hazards and their impact to pregnant and nursing mothers and their children, such as industrial poisons that wind up in amniotic fluid. If only everyone looked at things the way the author does, we'd have much safer pregnancies and children.
Here are a few parts of the book that really stood out to me:
* If our goal is to protect human embryos, we cannot afford to wait until we understand everything about how a chemical might inflict its damage.
* ...the presumption that heredity can account for many birth defects continues to this day, even though there is little evidence to support it...In fact, most of what is known about developmental abnormalities points to a much larger role for the environment.
* Besides, the sense of safety offered by bottled water is a mirage. It turns out that breathing, not drinking, constitutes our main route of exposure to volatile pollutants in tap water, such as solvents, pesticides, and byproducts of water chlorination. As soon as the toilet is flushed or the faucet turned on--or the bathtub, the shower, the humidifier, the washing machine--these contaminants leave the water and enter the air. A recent study shows that the most efficient way of exposing yourself to chemical contaminants in tap water is to turn on a dishwasher. (This surprises you?) Drink a bottle of French water and then step into the shower for ten minutes, and you've just received the exposure equivalent of drinking a half gallon of tap water.
She also recommends finding out what the Toxics Release Inventory shows for your community if you're pregnant or planning to be, so I'm off to do that now...
But what I most enjoyed about this book was the frankness about environmental hazards and their impact to pregnant and nursing mothers and their children, such as industrial poisons that wind up in amniotic fluid. If only everyone looked at things the way the author does, we'd have much safer pregnancies and children.
Here are a few parts of the book that really stood out to me:
* If our goal is to protect human embryos, we cannot afford to wait until we understand everything about how a chemical might inflict its damage.
* ...the presumption that heredity can account for many birth defects continues to this day, even though there is little evidence to support it...In fact, most of what is known about developmental abnormalities points to a much larger role for the environment.
* Besides, the sense of safety offered by bottled water is a mirage. It turns out that breathing, not drinking, constitutes our main route of exposure to volatile pollutants in tap water, such as solvents, pesticides, and byproducts of water chlorination. As soon as the toilet is flushed or the faucet turned on--or the bathtub, the shower, the humidifier, the washing machine--these contaminants leave the water and enter the air. A recent study shows that the most efficient way of exposing yourself to chemical contaminants in tap water is to turn on a dishwasher. (This surprises you?) Drink a bottle of French water and then step into the shower for ten minutes, and you've just received the exposure equivalent of drinking a half gallon of tap water.
She also recommends finding out what the Toxics Release Inventory shows for your community if you're pregnant or planning to be, so I'm off to do that now...