BPA-Free Plastic Containers May Be Just as Hazardous

I just wasted a ton of time and energy measuring the circumference of each item and the ball jar is about 1" larger. The Arizona can was a rough 9.5" making the ball jar 10.5"

Leach what, though? If it leaches iron, it might be more of a benefit than a problem, or at least neutral. (You can overdose on iron, but it's uncommon.)

> A 2011 study published in Environmental Health Perspectives found that almost all of the 455 commercially available plastics that were tested leached estrogenic chemicals.

There are other endocrine disruptors out there -- I think the main point of the article is that the US has no systematic process for testing plastics for consumer use.

They got the law that forces every mattress threated with the excuse that it will give you time if a fire starts. Big business.

What they don't tell you is that most fires in homes are created by smokers. If nobody in your home smokes you should be able to opt out of buying this sh*t.

And when your daughter is old enough to talk, she'll tell everyone she sleeps on the floor, and CPS will come take her away (this sort of thing is a major fear of mine -- some minor idiosyncrasy or eccentricity will be taken out of context and misinterpreted as a sign of an "unfit" home, and they'll come a-knockin').

It's survived two babies (me and my sister), countless hikes, seaside vacations, boilings, reboilings, and probably a fair share of being thrown every which way. We still use it sometimes because it's handy as a measuring cup and I wouldn't be surprised if it stays in the family for a few more decades.

For comparison, I don't think a single piece of the "camping proof unbreakable" dish set my parents bought when I was ten is still alive.

Glass is tough.

Every plastic has a mark for recycling.

In brief poking around the Web I find a couple of sites that say that not only are H/LDPE and PP okay, so is PET.

The only thing everyone agrees on is that polycarbonate has BPA (or an equally bad replacement).

As far as the others go, I'm not really sure what to think at this point.

(My boy is 8 days old)

Take your kids to the doctor regularly and you'll be okay. If you are doing something that 80% of the rest of society is doing and it turns out to be a subtle mistake, there will still be lots of people around you who made the same mistake and will help you figure out how to recover.

Relax. Enjoy your kids! They'll turn into teenagers before you know it.

He's right. There are worse things to worry about.

Except for that they didn't turn out fine. 1 in 5 couples in the US is now infertile, which is why this thread is here in the first place.

Two interesting papers: Lead Exposure and Behavior: Effects on Antisocial and Risky Behavior Among Children and Adolescents [1], and How Lead Exposure Relates to Temporal Changes in IQ, Violent Crime, and Unwed Pregnancy [2], estimates serious deleterious effects ranging from lower iq, lower self control, increased violent crime, etc, stemming from childhood lead exposure via tailpipe emissions.

[1] http://www.nber.org/papers/w20366

[2] http://pic.plover.com/Nevin/Nevin2000.pdf

Everyone says this.

"I smoked 40 cigarettes a day, and it hasn't harmed me!"

"My mother dropped me on my head every day, and it hasn't harmed me!"

Removing an unnecessary risk in child development is what this is about. If it makes sense to remove the risk, then you should.

But did they really (turn out ok)?

How common were peanut allergies and obesity before 1970 for example?

I'm not saying that BPA cause peanut allergies or obesity. I am saying that kids are not turning out OK and it's fair to question whether something environmental is causing this.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/jirtle-epigenetics.html

"Jirtle: We have recently demonstrated that exposure of pregnant mice to bisphenol A (BPA), a building block of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins used to make consumer items ranging from water bottles to dental sealants, significantly reduces DNA methylation in Avy mice (Dolinoy et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 104: 13056-13061, 2007). This results in the birth of more yellow offspring, mice that become obese and have a higher incidence of diabetes and cancer as adults. Thus, there could be a connection between the increase in plastics in our environment and the rising incidence of obesity in humans. However, such an association will not be able to be demonstrated unequivocally until the expression and function of genes involved in human obesity are shown to be altered by BPA."

Even though this particular polymer was originally discovered over 100years ago, and relatively modern production techniques were patented in the '50's, widespread use to replace glass in "water cooler" type bottles did not begin until the '80's.

Later this polymer moved down the chain into smaller bottles.

The invention of polycarbonate at GE in the '50's is interesting:

"[Fox's] discovery, made within eight months of his joining GE, was a serendipitous byproduct of the wire enamel project. The byproduct would prove far more important than the original objective."

from "Unlikely Victory: How General Electric Succeeded in the Chemical Industry"

http://books.google.com/books?id=bgdvYy80AHUC&pg=PA71#v=onep...

I feel your pain. My daughter just turned 1. Up until a month ago, she was still waking up 3 or 4 times a night. Sometimes more. We had gone so long without regular sleep that my wife and I had gained over 30 pounds. We became irritable, tense, and we were getting ourselves noticed at work for poor performance and tardiness. And despite being happily married for nearly 15 years, our mariage was in jeopardy.

We decided it was time to try sleep training. We first tried a gentle, "fewer tears" method[1]. It sort of worked, but my daughter quickly regressed and became worse than before. Our presence stimulated her rather than soothed her, so staying in the room just made things worse. So, in desperation, we tried Jodi Mindell's more old-fashioned method[2].

It worked. Beginning on night 3 of sleep training, we got 8 hours of unbroken, joyous sleep, and we have gotten regular sleep ever since. My daughter still wakes from time-to-time, but it's no big deal now. We can put her back to sleep in a matter of minutes rather than the hours it used to take before.

The best part though is that my daughter is so much more rested as well. We didn't realize that her poor sleep habits were taking such a toll on her. After a few days of good sleep, she began to smile and laugh more often. She began babbling like never before. She was less cranky, more patient, and her daytime naps even improved. It was like a damn miracle.

Anyway, long story short: take your own advice and prioritize your sleep. If you haven't tried sleep training yet, do it.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Lady%C2%AE%C2%92s-Good-Night-Tig...

[2]: http://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Through-Night-Infants-Toddler...

Why did you wait until then? Is it that you prefer glass bottles but they're too heavy for the baby to hold?

I have a 6-day-old (breastfed so far, but pumping means bottles get used too), so I'm trying to figure all this out. Maybe I'll order some glass bottles.

Dropped it a few times, didn't break... of course I dunno about a concrete sidewalk or anything. But in the home, it's pretty good. Seems to at least survive falling on the kitchen tiles. Not from the height of an adult drinking it, I dunno about that. But from the height of a 3 yr old girl dropping it.