The Noodad Lowdown on the Baby Bottle Controversy

Last weekend, we replaced all of our Avent bottles and Gerber sippy cups with new “BPA-free” ones from Born Free to the tune of more money that I want to think about. Yup, we jumped on THAT bandwagon. Although, I must admit that the more I learn, the less I feel like we got sucked into just hype.

For those as uninformed as I was until recently, BPA (bisphenol A) is a chemical that’s used to make hard clear plastic referred to as “polycarbonate” like the kind used in most popular brands of baby bottles and sippy cups. Some studies have shown a correlation between BPA and health issues in lab animals. The assertion that’s fueling concern is that over time, polycarbonate plastic begins to degrade and can leach BPA into fluids like milk and water. As you would expect, a swirling controversy has resulted.

I’d heard the rumblings (which have been more like thunder…it’s just that I had my “baby-product-health concern-filter” switched on so it only sounded like a rumble) for many months now.

On several occasions, I heard my wife discussing the issue with other moms in our circle of friends. But I never really paid it much attention because what I DID know was that BPA was “controversial” which I think guys tend to interpret as “ok for now.”

It’s not that I didn’t care to understand. I knew that she and many moms were struggling with how to interpret the findings…how to filter the reports…but perhaps succumbing more easily to old-school gender rolls than I’m proud of, it was a milk-feeding issue - and as the one breastfeeding and pumping, it seemed like her territory.

But my wife made a decision last weekend and it was time to act. So we did. And I somewhat guiltily decided I better take the time to understand the issue. Sifting through all of the content out there is exhausting so as a service to the Noodad readership, I’m sharing what I’ve learned*

• If you’re looking for definitive or easy answers, you won’t find them. The government is either defensive or accusatory depending on which agency you’re hearing from. The pediatric community is divided. And the blogosphere…well, it’s the blogosphere so you can imagine what that landscape looks like.

• It’s not new news that public health advocacy groups and juvenile product manufactures are hurling insults, claims and counter-claims at each other over BPA. This emotionally charged battle-royal has been raging for the last couple of years but questions about the risks associated with BPA have been around since the ’80s. The most recent media monsoon (and our trip to our local high-end baby store), however, was triggered about two weeks ago when the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) released new analysis indicating that Americans are exposed to BPA at levels that exceed the official safety threshold set by the EPA.

• About that EPA safety threshold - it was established 15 years ago and many scientists were of the opinion back then that it was set too high.

• Most of the scientific community agrees that BPA in high enough doses can have hormone like effects. When hormone balances get artificially stimulated, undesirable physiological things begin to happen. Several studies using lab animals have shown a link between PBA and health conditions ranging from hyperactivity to early onset puberty to cancer. What makes the controversy so…controversial is not really whether children are exposed to BPA but rather how much (if any) is safe. The bottom line is that no one really knows. As soon as a study comes out, it’s propped up and picked apart by both sides of the battle.

• The FDA, who SHOULD be the group that leads the charge to resolve the debate has agreed to but not yet undertaken an official investigation but did go so far as to state in typical governmental nonsense and CYA that “The BPA levels found…migrating out of polycarbonate baby bottles are not significantly different than the very low levels previously found by FDA chemists and other laboratories, levels that result in a dietary exposure that is orders of magnitude below the levels known to not cause toxic effects in animals.” Crystal clear and most reassuring, huh?!

• The real cause for concern and what’s gotten people so fired up recently is that the CDC analysis also found that children (under 6) are exposed to more BPA than adolescents who were exposed to more than adults. Extrapolated, it’s easy to see bottles and sippy cups as the culprit for this finding.

• The conditions under which these items could leach BPA is also hotly debated - some say they do naturally while others say that they have to be heated or degraded in certain extreme ways.

• To live BPA-free is probably unrealistic - it’s found in trace amounts in too many places - but in that bottles and sippys are obvious places it’s used, many groups have urged parents to switch to BPA-free alternatives. Some have even gone so far as to advise pregnant women and nursing moms to give up their Nalgene (or similar) water bottles which are also made from BPA.

For us, our rationale was that if there’s a question, we’d rather err on the side of caution. So we did what we did. Was is the right call? Only time (measured in many years most likely) and millions of dollars worth of sure-to-be-contested research projects will tell. But we’re sleeping just a little bit better now than we were before.

Here are a couple of links to info we found useful:

Informative article on BPA and info on BPA content for all major bottle brands + BPA-free alternatives.

Parents.com Article with good Q&A format

CDC Spotlight Report on BPA

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK? WHAT, IF ANYTHING, HAVE YOU DONE?

*This article in no way claims to present a comprehensive overview of BPA, bottle brand specifics or the potential health issues related to BPA.