Kids Car Seats Contain Dangerous Toxins
Child seats save lives, there is no question about that. And their widespread use has been a very good thing for kids everywhere. But a recent report released in June 2015 by Gillian Z. Miller, Ph.D. and Jeff Gearhart, M. S. for Ecologycenter (Healthystuff.org) uncovered some disturbing news when they 15 recently tested widely-available children’s car seats for toxicity and discovered that:
Nearly three-quarters (73%) of seats tested contained hazardous halogenated flame retardants and over half contained non-halogenated organophosphate flame retardants, some of which are hazardous as well.
Worse that that, if you read the full report summary you’ll see that all child seats contain some type of retardant, yet very few tests have been done to determine the safety of even the newer ones. You must read this article, it’s very in-depth and informative. They have tested over 377 car seats since 2006, so they have a pretty long track record of reporting.
What’s the big deal?
Fire retardant chemicals have been found in Arctic air, meaning they travel far and wide and have contaminated the soil and air across the globe. All people tested for bioaccumulation of toxins tested positive for flame retardants, even infants. The stuff is everywhere, and we don’t know the long term effects of such infusion into the world. Many classes have been proven mutagenic and carcinogenic ie. TDBPP, TDCPP, and PBDE’s and they are in our mattresses, clothing, cars, and home furniture.
The chemicals will flake off over time, and can be inhaled and ingested. Children are especially at risk because they are regularly exposed to greater amounts of household dust that adults are, and therefore tend to ingest twice as much.
I don’t know about you, but we don’t want our baby eating industrial fire retardants.
What can you do?
If you already have a car seat for your kids, don’t panic. You don’t need to run out and get a new one. Your car is probably also covered in flame retardants already. Make sure you vacuum it and the child’s seat regularly so if the dust does accumulate you can remove it before they (and you!) eat or inhale it. If it’s possible to remove the cover and wash it, do so regularly for the same reason. Limit the time your kids spend in them to travel only. Keep the car seats cool by keeping the interior of the car cool by parking it in the shade, or removing the seat completely if the car will be in the sun for several days on end.
I think this goes without saying but, do NOT stop using a car seat. The risk from a car accident is much greater and far more certain.
If you haven’t already purchased a car seat then consider one of the following which were tested safer than the others on in the report (links below to Amazon.com) in order, starting with the seats containing what they considered the safest amount of retardant ( all seats must have some retardant by law.)
- Britax Frontier (Booster)
- Britax Parkway (Booster)
- Britax Marathon (Convertible)
- Clek Foonf (Convertible)
Britax scored highly because they noticed the testing done by HealthyStuff.org and decided to change to safer chemicals. Good for them, and it’s a smart business move as more and more consumers become aware of this issue.
Read the full report summary here. Thank you Healtystuff.org!