Harmful Chemicals Affecting Child’s Brain Development
Children especially from early years are always fond of putting everything in their mouths, anything that made contact with them, they are not yet aware of the danger.
As a parent, we have surely observed this behavior of our child, and the least we can do is prevent them from coming into contact with hazardous materials, including some of our household stuff that may contain these harmful chemicals.
In this video, Suzanne Price will be sharing information about the harmful chemicals in our children’s toys, clothes, and other products.
Full Interview Transcript
Today we are here with Suzanne Price, founder of Sprout,
Kelly: So, Suzanne, thank you so much for having us here. What are some of the dangers are lurking in our children’s toys? What kinds of things should we be scared of?
Suzanne: Depending on the category, there are a number of products we like to avoid, but if there are five buzzwords, five main chemicals you want to make sure are not in your home, I would start with flame retardants and that’s chlorinated or fluorinated flame retardants. Then I would look for endocrine disruptors and two main ones are parabens and phthalates. Parabens and phthalates are still in a lot of personal care in the US and are banned in Europe for the most part. I would make sure to avoid formaldehyde. Formaldehyde isn’t glues and also in some cleaning products.
Suzanne: the number one thing that we should be worried about, especially when it pertains to toys, is plastics. There have been a number of changes to the plastic toy laws over the past 10 years since we’ve been in business. In 2009, some phthalates, which are an endocrine disrupting chemical, were banned in plastic toys and just this year additional phthalates were banned in plastic toys. These bans take a couple of years to take effect. Also, they aren’t necessarily regulated very well. Toys coming in from other countries aren’t exactly tested to prove that they don’t have any of these banned phthalates and any toys that are passed down or may have been in stock at a retailer or at a manufacturer for a number of years may not meet these requirements. It is proven that phthalates when in a plastic toy will come off in a child’s saliva when they suck on it and quickly enter their bloodstream.
Kelly: The way they get exposure just by putting things in their mouth and things like that?
Suzanne: Exactly. Young children’s suck on everything as you know, so putting things in their mouth. Also, phthalates, do come off of products and end up in the dust in our homes.
One suggestion I’ve heard is to vacuum frequently. Make sure to clean up the dust in your home when you have a child crawling around on the floor because everything is going to get into their mouth. Another concern with dust is flame retardant chemicals. 95% of homes in the US that were tested, tested positive for both phthalates in the dust and flame-retardant chemicals in the dust. The flame-retardant chemicals are coming off of our couches and all of us upholstered furniture in our home, which pretty much all has flame retardant spit on it if it was brought before the last couple of years. So that’s all getting the dust, the children are crawling around in the dust and putting their hands in their mouth.
Kelly: So, what is the impact if they’re exposed to that?
Suzanne: Phthalates are known endocrine disrupting chemical, which means it with the body’s hormones and development. So, that can lead to anything from infertility and breast cancer later in life to prostate cancer, any other type of hormone disorders that may not show up for another 50 years, but it’s still being affected by the things that are exposed to when they’re young.
Kelly: Are there any immediate effects that you see that happen or is it just something that would happen years down the line?
Suzanne: It takes a long time for these effects to come out early. Puberty is a growing problem, girls on average are getting their periods a couple months earlier than they did 20 years ago and girls are developing breasts over a year earlier than they did 20 years ago. Early puberty leads to a whole host of problems both emotionally and physically later in life for children and growing adults.
Kelly: What are some of the other chemicals that we should be aware of that it might be harmful and what other kinds of toys that we wouldn’t even think would be dangerous?
Suzanne: Sure. Well, one thing that we really care about at Sprout is organic cotton. So, you can see all of our clothing is organic cotton, bedding, mattresses, everything is organic because there are some really terrible pesticides sprayed on cotton. Cotton, is the most heavily pesticided crop in the world. People don’t realize that. One of the common pesticides sprayed on crops is glyphosate. Glyphosate is what is the main ingredient in Roundup and recently a court case was just one actually here in San Francisco proving that a man got cancer from spraying Roundup on his lawn.
Kelly: Oh wow.
Suzanne: There’s Roundup spray, there is glyphosate sprayed on a lot of cotton. Another chemical that is commonly sprayed on cotton is chlorpyrifos and just a couple of days ago Governor Newsom banned chlorpyrifos in crops in California, which is a huge win. However, this ban will take two years to take effect. Right now, if you buy non organic crops made in California or anywhere in the US, that can be chlorpyrifos sprayed on them. Chlorpyrifos was suggested by the EPA to be banned a couple of years ago under the Obama Administration. The current administration has reversed that ban and chlorpyrifos is allowed to be sold throughout the country. One known problem with chlorpyrifos is that it causes children to have lower IQs and higher rates of ADHD. There was a recent study where women who are pregnant who live near farms or chlorpyrifos was sprayed were tested and the higher the rates of chlorpyrifos in their blood while they are pregnant, the lower the IQ is of their children and higher rates of ADHD.
Kelly: So you’re saying that the cotton, I mean like so kind of changed from being a crop to like coming into clothing. That alone just the where, how the cotton was grown as has been proven to effect?
Suzanne: People ask me all the time, are these pesticides coming off of on the clothing while my children are wearing them? If I wash them a lot or in the manufacturing process, don’t those pesticides go away and yeah, it’s unclear. There have been some studies in South America for example, that showed that pesticides could be detected on cotton swabs, like Q-tips, cotton balls. So, it does show that it is staying in the cotton throughout the manufacturing process whether that comes out on the clothing, it’s hard to determine. We believe why take the risk, especially when you’re talking about very young children. We also believe that you should do what’s best for the environment and keep these pesticides away from the farmland where they’re grown by lowering the demand and trying to buy organic when you can.
Kelly: What other kinds of choices should we be looking out for and making sure that we’re finding safe products?
Suzanne: the top five things I’d look out for when you’re trying to have safe products for your child would be the mattress they’re sleeping on, the household cleaners you’re using around them, the personal care products you’re putting on them, the plastics in the products holding their food and milk and the plastics and their toys.
Suzanne: Flame retardant chemicals are sprayed on a lot of mattresses. So, babies are sleeping on them, breathing up the fumes of the flame-retardant chemicals and we now know that they can be damaging a child’s brain development. Non-organic mattresses are often sprayed with these chemicals because non organic mattresses are usually made of polyurethane foam, which is highly flammable. So, to meet the flammability requirements of mattresses, they’re sprayed with heavy chemicals and those chemicals easily come off in the foam and into the air and the child is sleeping on them. Organic mattresses are using natural flame-retardant barriers like wool, Silica Gel, latex, coconut husks, other things that meet those flammability requirements naturally without chemicals.
Kelly: Can you name the top five products that you think that you are very important too to get all natural?
Suzanne: the top five things I’d look out for when you’re trying to have safe products for your child would be the mattress they’re sleeping on, the household cleaners you’re using around them, the personal care products you’re putting on them, the plastics in the products holding their food and milk and the plastics and their toys.
Suzanne: Try to use more natural cleaning products is one of the main things that you should change. Think about the personal care products you’re using. Everything that you put on your skin goes into your bloodstream. There was a study that came out a few days ago that sunscreen put on your skin is in your bloodstream within 12 hours. So, any chemical in that sunscreen is going to be going through your blood in 12 hours with a baby, with their brand-new pores skin, it matters even more. One, every drop of a product is pound for pound more. Every drop of a product on a baby’s skin pound for pound is more a percentage of their bloodstream than it is for you. Also, babies are still developing, especially a child’s brain is developing until they’re two years old. Everythingthat you surround them with, when they’re really little, it’s going to affect the development of their body going forward in a different way than it does for us. So any lotions, shampoos, anything you put on your baby, you can assume it’s going right inside them and you have to be careful that there is no endocrine disrupting chemicals or any other scary products in those materials that are going on their skin.
Both toys and feeding related products, we like to warn people to be careful about the plastics that you’re using. A lot of people store their baby’s food and plastics or they’re drinking from plastic bottles. We all know now about the harms of BPA, BPA was only banned 10 years ago and what a lot of manufacturers are doing are replacing that BPA with other bisphenols. So other best funnels are BPZ, BPF, BPAF, BPS. There’s a whole host of other bisphenols. Actually, the state of New York is trying to propose a ban on the bisphenol alphabet they call it, which is all bisphenols around children’s products. But it is proven that those bisphenols which are endocrine disrupting chemicals that can mess with the body’s hormones, that they do leech out a food products into the food that’s in the, that’s being stored into the food that’s being stored in them and then the child will ingest it.
So, for example, you buy a bottle or sippy cup that’s BPA free and you feel that you’re doing something safer for your child and you might even think it’s okay to microwave something in that plastic. But whatever is being used to replace the BPA hasn’t been tested, isn’t being disclosed and can leach into that food, especially if it’s heated.
Kelly: You’re saying just glass using glass?
Suzanne: Glass, stainless steel, silicone has become really easy to find and so far we haven’t found any specific problems with silicone and people ask us about that a lot. It is recommended maybe not to bake with it or heat it up really high but silicone is storage seems to be safe so far and if you have to use plastic very sparingly, try to use plastics from companies that you know, have done a lot of testing, don’t have any bisphenol’s and don’t heat up plastic.
Kelly: Tell us more about how you vet your products, you have a team of people that help you research and recommend. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Suzanne: Absolutely. We have a scientific advisory board who helps us stay on top of what are the latest concerns, latest things we should know about, some things that really aren’t even making major news yet, but we always want to be one step ahead of what the consumer is even realizing. Sometimes people come into our store and say, why don’t you have this? And then we’re explaining to them about a chemical they’ve never heard of, but that we make sure we don’t have here. For example, triclosan, triclosan was banned last year in antibacterial soaps. For the past 10 years, we’ve never had triclosan at Sprout because one of our advisors had informed us that this was an allergy and asthma enhancer that was in most antibacterial soap. So, we made sure to avoid that. We were heavily trying to influence people not have triclosan in their home, many people say things to us like, if that was really true, wouldn’t it be banned? And in this case, eventually it was banned. Triclosan is still in toothpaste, Colgate announced this morning, they’re taking triclosan out of their toothpaste.
So, that’s great news, but sometimes the scientists know that these are problems way before the government officials realize that they need to do something about it. So, our scientific advisory board helps us stay on top of that. I’m on the board of an organization at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York called the Children’s Environmental Health Center and they do a tremendous amount of research on these chemicals to know where the problems that are coming out and so I stay informed through that. through these organizations and other advisors that we have, we make sure that we always know what’s coming, what we should be looking out for and are asking questions of our vendors that some of them say nobody else is asking to make sure that our customers know everything here is safe.
Kelly: You mentioned a couple that were coming out, are there any other things that maybe we don’t know about that we should be aware of?
Suzanne: One thing that the public isn’t really aware of yet but is becoming a major concern to scientists is fabric finishers. So, people are starting to be aware that flame retardant chemicals are very harmful to children’s brains and to other aspects of development. Some of the same things that are wrong with flame retardant chemicals are also in fabric finishers. Basically, stain resistant chemicals. So, most strollers have stain resistant chemicals on them. People want their kids to be able to spill and have it not stained the stroller. We haven’t actually found a stroller that doesn’t have stain resistant chemicals on it. So that’s something that we’re going to be looking out for and pushing our manufacturers and our vendors to try and come up with a solution for. We suggest where you can to have the type of car seat or stroller where the cover can come off and be thrown in the wash. That may be less likely to be sprayed with heavy chemicals, but you have to start to ask that question. Some car seat manufacturers are starting to work on having less harmful fluorinated chemicals use the stain resistance and that’s what we’re going to be looking out for over the next couple of years.
Kelly: The main way that the child is absorbed or exposed to all these chemicals is primarily through like wearing the clothing, having on the ground, putting things in their mouth there. Is there any other way, anything else that we should be looking out for in regard to these chemicals?
Suzanne: Certain things like household cleaners or foam that breaks down from mattresses or upholstered furniture is released into the air and what’s called volatile organic compounds or VOC. So, children can breathe those in even if they aren’t touching them and physically putting in their mouths. A lot of time people say to us, well my child isn’t eating their clothing, they’re not eating the couch cushion. So, it shouldn’t really be a problem, right? But you can see these things getting into children’s lungs and then into their bloodstream if they are just around them and breathe them i
Kelly: Can you recommend some of your favorite safe toxic free toys that you recommend?
Suzanne: One wonderful brand is called Plan Toys. Some of our representatives from Sprout actually when all the way to Thailand to visit the Plan Toys factory, see how the products are made. They visited the rubber tree plantations where the, what is coming from for these toys. Everything is being produced in a very sustainable manner using vegetables dyes, no glues, completely safe for the children to suck on. On the higher end, but still worthwhile in our opinion side is a wonderful brand called Grims. Grimms is made in Germany, beautiful, beautiful toys. They are slightly more expensive, but when you see these products, they look like a piece of art in your home.
Kelly: Thank you so much for being here. I think it’s great to have the latest on what’s happening out there too, especially given that we don’t hear about it until after most people, the scientists are hearing about it. So, it’s good to have the insights, thanks.
Suzanne: Thank you so much. We love sharing what we’ve learned with our customers and with anyone else who’s interested. So, I appreciate your spending the time.

About Suzanne Price
Previously a Senior Equity Research Analyst in the Green Living Consumer Sector at ThinkEquity, a San Francisco-based investment bank, Suzanne spent several years studying organic products and the impact of toxic chemicals on our bodies. Thinking about starting a family in the midst of this research was, to say the least, quite intimidating. She realized that there was no one place to shop that carried all-natural baby products and employed knowledgeable salespeople. In 2009, Suzanne founded Sprout.
Sprout has everything you need to make your home safe, healthy, and adorable for a new baby—all under one roof. Everything is individually stamped with Suzanne’s seal of approval.
Everyday Suzanne is inspired by her daughters, Hannah and Amber, to keep up-to-date on child safety and chemical research, making it easy for new parents to provide healthy environments for all of their children.
For more information visit: www.sproutsanfrancisco.com