Should parents be concerned about baby bottles?

Glass bottles and containers have been more or less been completely supplanted by plastic bottles and containers. However, lately there have been growing concerns that the plastic bottles and containers may be contributing to earlier maturation of our young ones. When my wife learned that plastics may be involved in causing girls to attain premature puberty, the plastic containers in our house were quickly replaced with glass containers.

Today I read that Walmart is pulling plastic baby bottles containing BPA off the shelf because they are implicated in causing many problems including chromosomal abnormalities, developmental disabilities, mental retardation etc.


Photo: Egg on Stilts

Parents tend to be most cautious about their little ones, so I expect parents to start looking feverishly to replace the plastic bottles with something that doesn't contain BPA. Companies like Gerber and Avent are capitalizing on this by introducing BPA free plastic bottles. But how about the good old glass baby bottle? This is a big opportunity for glass container manufacturers and I know there are some companies that make glass bottles. But I am surprised we aren't seeing more company trying to take advantage on this business opportunity.

While the role of BPA itself as a health risk is unclear, removing BPA bottles alone won't do the job.
BPA is everywhere, used to make polycarbonate, a rigid, clear plastic for bottles, bike helmets, DVDs and car headlights. It's also an ingredient in epoxy resins, which coat the inside of food and drink cans. About 93% of Americans tested by the Centers for Disease Control had the chemical in their urine.


If you are like me, I would try to eliminate any plastic containers involved at least in the heating of food because the risk of these chemicals entering the food is the most increases when foods are heated in BPA containing containers. But for the cautious, it should be easy to replace the plastic containers with glass and melamine containers.

For parents of young toddlers and babies, start using glass baby bottles such as this ones from Evenflo available from an online baby catalog.

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