16: Beauty Products and Nursing Moms: Harmful Ingredients to Avoid to Safeguard Your Newborns Health

We moms are careful while pregnant to safeguard the precious lives growing inside us. Did you know that what you put on your skin after your baby is born matters just as much?

Listen in on how certain ingredients can transfer from your body into your breastmilk and your newborn. You will want to take note of these ingredients and avoid them during this next precious phase of your journey.

Share this episode with any friends expecting or with newborns at home. Thank will thank you, I promise!

Click Here to check out the Fertility Awareness Blog Post Series referenced in this episode.

Click Here if you would like to read our blog post on Nursing Moms and Beauty Product Ingredients.

Click Here for a complete list of our No Thank You List. 

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Transcript

Jaime Snell: 0:01

Hi, and welcome back to the ECO Mama Podcast. I'm your host, Jaime Snell, and I'm excited to be back with you today. I have been doing a lot of research lately, trying to understand more in depth about how the products that we use every day can affect our hormones. Now, as an ECO mama, I've always been interested in how our products can affect our children. As their bodies develop, as their brains grow and as their hormones develop. I'm learning more and more though that it's not, just our kids, that these hormonal, disruptions were occurring and it's also adults, but I'm learning more and more about the, the endocrine disruptors that are wreaking havoc and our hormonal systems, how they are affecting women of a fertile age. And there's some really sad statistics out there that have just made me. Like open my eyes more and more and more about the importance of sharing this information. This is one of those things that just aren't talked about that often, and I feel the need like Dayton and my core to talk about it. And I know someone out there. I know that you have to know someone out there that has probably struggled with the topic that I'm gonna touch on right now, and, and my heart goes out to you. My heart goes out to them. I've had friends who struggled with fertility, struggled with miscarriages, even struggled with I V F. In the process of trying to fulfill their dreams of having a family, what I'm learning about a lot of the products that we use and the chemicals that are put into these products, they're mimicking our hormones and making our bodies believe that something's happening when it's not, or that, something's not happening when it actually is. I know that kind of sounds weird, and you need to know I'm not a scientist, I'm not a doctor. I am a mama who geeks out about all these little details and I love to learn as much as possible. And I soak it up like a sponge and then I come on here and I share it with you. But what's happening is that, our body is made to produce certain chemicals and certain hormones throughout our life when we have these endocrine instructors in our system. Our body is not getting clear messages about what to produce and when, or it's overproducing, so it's overproducing or under-producing. There's no natural balance that it's occurring because we're putting some synthetic ingredients into our bodies. Their bodies were never designed to absorb or process. They just don't know what to do with it. So I wanna go over a couple of those things. They, they linked together, last week was National Infertility Awareness Week for in the United States and for 2023, and I did a seven part. Blog post, I'll put the link down below. I'm not gonna go too much into depth with that. It's a resource that I wanna zip out there for. Anyone interested in learning more about the awareness of it? How many people don't talk about it, the taboos, you know me, I the first to talk about something that nobody else wants to talk about. So here's one of'em. One in eight women in the US they struggle with pregnancy. Infertility, miscarriages, what have you, and I'm a firm believer that one of the major contributors. Is the chemicals that we're exposed to on a daily basis. There's a lot of controversy around this. Again, this is just my personal opinion. Take it or leave it. Do your own research. I'm happy to share my resources with you, but in that process, there's other things like once you do get pregnant, you wanna make sure that you're taking care of your body so that you can sustain the pregnancy. I've had friends go through miscarriages, as I mentioned, and it is heart wrenching. So heart-wrenching, and if there's anything that I can ever do as an individual, as a child of God, as a woman on this earth, is to help someone avoid that type of pain and loss. And the research that I've done, I just wanna share with you today what some of those endocrine disruptors are. A good indicator for them is just to know like, well, what's safe to put in your body when you're breastfeeding? So let's think about when you are breastfeeding your new baby, or your friend just had a child in their breastfeeding. There's certain things you don't eat. You could even eat them when you were pregnant, but you don't wanna eat them while you're breastfeeding. And there are some things that you couldn't eat while you're pregnant, you're still not eating while you're breastfeeding. An example would probably be, gosh, what am I like spicy foods, garlic, things like that. Things that could upset the baby's tummy because what is in your breast milk? Is going to transfer into your baby's belly and that baby is still developing its belly, its ability to digest food, its ability to break things down. You're testing the waters. Do they have allergies? You know, we don't give honey to our babies in the first year because. We wanna make sure that they don't have an allergic reaction to it. So what I'm gonna share today are, I think it's six ingredients that you want to avoid while you're breastfeeding because they have found, studies have found that these are not healthy to your babies as they are. Their bodies are developing as their stomachs are developing, learning to digest. Their brains are developing. All of this, what have you, so these ingredients, several of them are hormone disruptors. So I'll go ahead and like tell you that out front it disrupts the hormones. It mimics different things, and it gets in the way of the baby's natural development. And this is whether you have a baby boy or a baby girl, or one of each it is just imperative to avoid. These ingredients when you are breastfeeding. So the first one are parabens. Now I've done an individual, uh, podcast previously on most of these ingredients. I can link that down below. It gets more into detail about what that actual ingredient is, what it's found in, and why it's bad for our bodies. Parabens are preservatives. They're commonly found in cosmetics and personal care products, and they're linked to breast cancer. That can potentially disrupt your hormones. Number two, phalates. This is a tricky one to spell because it does not sound the way it's spelled. It's P H T H A L A T E S. Our chemicals in various beauty products, including fragrances, hairsprays, and nail polishes. If you have listened to any of my podcasts and the word fragrance comes up, you know I'm putting it back on the shelf. I say, no thank you to anything with fragrance in it. These are known and endocrine disruptors and can potentially harm the development of the reproductive system of your babies. So think about the ovaries that are. Like they exist, but they still have to have like healthy formation and development as the body grows and the testicles. You know, there's some debate about during pregnancy, having certain chemicals exposed to, the mom while the baby's still in gestation, and the increasing rate of testicle drops not happening in newborn baby boys. Number three on this list of things that nursing moms should avoid. Formaldehyde. This probably comes without saying, but do you really know what to look for when you're trying to avoid formaldehyde? Formaldehyde you're probably most familiar with as a chemical put into. Cadavers so that it preserves their body a little bit longer. Well, the industry of personal care products, cleaning products, beauty products they put from aldehyde as a preservative in these products so that it will last longer and it's actually getting onto your skin, into your bloodstream. Mind you, they are limited in how much they can put in. It's only trace amounts, but as we've seen with anything over time, the more exposure you have, the more chances you are to have negative side effects from these chemicals. So, in my opinion, it's just better to avoid them. If at all possible. So, formaldehyde is a preservative. It's commonly found in hair straightening treatments and nail polishes. It's a known carcinogen and can be harmful if inhaled or absorbed through the skin. So it's another thing that's best to avoid. Avoid while breastfeeding. Now when I say, do you really know if it has formaldehyde in your ingredients, it's not gonna say for me how to hide my friends. This is gonna be hidden under your fragrances. There are certain, chemicals that have a chemical reaction when they touch and they create this preservative so it can actually be created within the process of mixing the water. Most of your products, your hair products that have a high water concentration also have that formaldehyde in it. Retinoids are another ingredient. Now, these are more common in your face creams. Think of like the anti-aging creams or Acne treatments, so they can also harm developing fetuses. So if you're pregnant, definitely stay away from it. And infants, so you don't want that to be in your breast milk that can be transferred into your baby's belly. HydroOne. HydroOne is a synthetic compound, commonly found in skin lightning in anti-aging products. So that's another one that you're gonna find it in some of your products for your face if you're starting to get sunspots. Some of these. You know, considered luxury brand high end. Miracle face creams will contain this ingredient because it's kind of trying to bleach your skin to lighten the tone and to make it a little bit more even keel. If you have sunspots on there, you just wanna avoid this. Those dark spots are just part of nature. If it really, really bothers you, just cover it up a little bit with some makeup or foundation. But don't put this on your skin. It is so bad for you. The way it works on your body is that it inhibits the melanin production in your skin, but your body needs to produce that. That's, that's how your body was designed, HydroOne has been linked to skin irritations, including hives and swelling. Given allergic reactions, difficulty breathing, and of course hormonal disruptions. Now in animal studies, not that I'm a proponent for animal testing, but many people still do it in their products, but they have found developmental issues in animals when they've done testing on that. So stay away from that. Fragrances are another one. I mentioned this briefly earlier, but they're found in many beauty and personal care products. Like most of what I find on the grocery store shelf has a, has the word fragrance and it's ingredients and it is not safe for you. They can be problematic for many people, especially those with sensitive skin or allergies making. Contain up to 3000 undisclosed ingredients. So if it has fragrance, it, just avoid it at all costs. I don't care if you're pregnant or you just got a baby, you, you, man, woman, what have you. Just stay away from fragrances. There's nothing good about fragrances. Sally Slic acid is another one. It is often found and used in what's used in the skin in care industry for acne treatments and exfoliating products. Now, there are natural ways to exfoliate. You don't need products to do this, my friends. So it's generally used as for safe skin care products and small amounts considered safe, but, Just don't mess with it. And high concentrations are really bad for your new baby, so just stay away from anything that's gonna peel your skin or exfoliate your skin. Just get, a, like a lofa, and then you can gently do that on your face if you're worried about some dry skin patches. Oxybenzone. All right, so this is the last ingredient I'm gonna list to you today for ingredients that breastfeeding moms need to try to avoid. It is a common ingredient in sunscreen now. It's been linked to hormone disruption as well, and can potentially harm the development of fetuses and infants. So if you're pregnant, you also want to avoid the oxybenzone. So skin protection is very important. And what a mom puts on their skin really matters when moms and babies enjoy that skin to skin contact. Whatever you have on you is gonna transfer to your baby. So even if you don't breastfeed, a lot of these ingredients that I just mentioned, I would suggest you still stay away from it. I mean, if you're loving on that baby, this stuff's gonna transfer onto your baby, and it's just not worth taking those health risks, especially at such a vulnerable age. Well, that is what I have for you today. I'm gonna leak the information down in the show notes that I mentioned earlier, as well as a blog post. That follows up on today's podcast that will give you additional information. If you want more details or you know, wanna check out any of those sources that I had mentioned. I thank you so much for joining me today, and I hope you have a wonderful week. That's it for today for the ECO Mama Podcast. Make sure you hit subscribe, and if you know someone who is pregnant trying to get pregnant or just had a baby, share this with them. Give this little bit of knowledge, even if they don't read it today, like knowledge is power. So having this resource at their fingertips when it matters most would just be an honor to me that you could just share that with someone that it could help. Thank you so much and have a great day.