The Natural Baby

 by Nerys Purchon

Copyright 2000

All Rights Reserved

Last year I became a grandmother for the seventh time and was privileged to be present and very active at the birth of my newest granddaughter. I had spent some time before she was born making special baby preparations for her birthday present and was interested to look at what was available 'over the counter' for baby care. I wasn't impressed by what I discovered.

My original reason for writing this article was to pass on to parents the information I had learnt about the commercial preparations for skin and hair care for babies and how to  make inexpensive, sweet smelling and natural oils, ointment and powders for the soft,  sweet skin of their infant.  However, after making a few notes, I realised that we can't make a distinction between the three main ways of introducing toxins (or anything for that matter!) into the body. I began again looking at what is breathed in, what is swallowed and what enters through the skin (the largest organ of the body).

As parents what do we want for our children? First and foremost we want them to be healthy because without good health it becomes difficult for a child to reach its full potential. It's an alarming fact that despite our increased knowledge and modern 'super drugs', cancer, asthma and other potentially fatal diseases have increased steadily and dramatically over the years — particularly since the turn of the century. It's no surprise to me that this increase coincides with the enormous changes that have taken place over the last 50 years.

If we become more aware of the poisons entering our bodies and the bodies of our children and make an effort to reduce the intake of these poisons we would, I'm sure, improve health and reduce the incidence of disease.

We need to go back fifty years in order to understand the enormous changes with which our bodies must cope. Fifty years ago life as it is now would have seemed impossible. We have learn to enjoy but also to contend with huge advances in technology that have resulted in the daily use of such things as microwave ovens, mobile telephones, aerosol sprays, television and computers. Heavy industry pollutes our lakes, oceans and rivers and the food we eat is treated with pesticides and artificial fertilisers. Our meat may contain residues of organochlorines such as DDT and Dieldrin which, even though the manufacture has been banned since the late eighties still remain in the soil polluting the pasture on which animals graze. Animals are frequently treated with antibiotics and if the withholding period isn't observed it will pass from their flesh to humans where it can render the body resistant to antibiotic treatment when it may be urgently needed.

Human beings are extraordinarily adaptable but they need time to adapt and that time hasn't been granted to us. We all live very busy lives — this also has changed in the last fifty years. Prior to this time the roles were clearly defined. Dad went out to work, Mum stayed home to look after the house and raise the children, and she was very busy as there were no labour saving devices (I had two babies before washing machines, refrigerators and vacuum cleaners were invented). There were no takeaway foods, no synthetic fabrics, no pesticides or herbicides and very few cars to pollute the air, the majority of people walked or rode bicycles to get from A to B.  Most people had a vegetable patch and for all except the rich, meat was a treat reserved for a small roast on Sunday, cold meat on Monday and shepherd's pie on Tuesday to use up what was left on the bone. Wall to wall carpets were unheard of because of the difficulty of keeping them clean and rugs were taken out a couple of times a week to be soundly thrashed with a carpet beater (a wonderful way of relieving bad temper!). This meant that dust mites, animal hairs and other allergens were disposed of regularly. Soap and borax were used to wash dishes and flies were killed with a fly-swat (I use one of these and it's great if you need to vent frustration!)

The invention of labour saving machines and sophisticated household products was hailed with triumph as a way of freeing a woman from drudgery but what happened? She claimed a place in the outside workforce as well as the home, so doubling her workload! Often, both parents work away from home and come back in the evening to face a few more hours of work when they are already tired. The temptation is to buy ready prepared food, to allow an excess of television, to use ready made personal, cleaning and household products and to wear easy-care synthetic clothing. Our stress levels reach such unmanageable heights that our systems are compromised and we get sick. In fact, we are living longer but are no healthier.

In an ideal scenario we would live in an area with pure air and water and grow our own fruit and vegetables on unpolluted land without the use of chemicals. We would have a milking cow, a beehive or two and a few free range chickens. We once had a small herb farm in a beautiful valley. When we first lived there it fulfilled all our dreams but as more people discovered this valley paradise and built houses up-river from us the story changed. The river water became so polluted that we had to chlorinate our water tank, local farmers sprayed their crops on windy days and we would watch the dust and spray fall on our land. We realised that it's now well nigh impossible to avoid much of the impact of the late twentieth century so we had to learn to live with it while taking good care of ourselves and remaining relaxed about the whole thing.

After acknowledging the downside of the present we need to bring the best of of the past into the present (after all, who wants to live without the washing machine or refrigerator?) and do what we can (and that's a great deal) to ensure that we make simple and beneficial changes in our lives and those of our families.

How do we rear a 'natural' baby? Instead of becoming stressed and depressed about the situation and feeling that the whole universe is out of our control we need to find ways to make our own home as environmentally safe and stress-free as we can.

THE BEGINNING

So you've decided to have a baby 

This is the most important and probably the most exciting thing that you will do in your life and the future of this natural baby begins even before conception. From the moment you begin to think of having a baby you and your partner can take steps to ensure that the developing baby has the best possible chance of being born healthy. Most of what you need to do is just common sense, it's a bit like spring cleaning your home before a special guest arrives!

1.  Begin to take a special interest in what you eat and make sure that your food is low in saturated fats and sugar and high in essential nutrients such as the following:

Zinc can improve fertility and is found in dandelion greens, wheat germ, brewer's yeast, ginger root, potatoes, pumpkin seeds, eggs, dried skimmed milk, steak and lamb chops, carrots, beans and corn.

Folate deficiency may cause brain and spinal cord defects at birth, the main food sources are liver, green vegetables, carrots, kidneys, egg yolks, wholegrain cereals and red raspberry leaves. Adequate intake of folate needs to be taken at least one month prior to conception.

Increase your intake of foods that are rich in B vitamins found in green leafy vegetables. whole wheat products, eggs, milk, cheese, soya flour, bananas, nuts, seeds, meats, fatty fish, avocados and dandelion greens.

Try to eat only organically grown or unsprayed fruit and vegetables but if this isn't possible then wash them thoroughly in several changes of water and peel root vegetables. Pay special attention to the stalk area of apples as the indentation catches much of the spray.

I feel that a three month liver cleansing diet is a wonderful thing to do for your body at any time but particularly if you plan to become pregnant.

2   Stop or drastically cut down on coffee (seven cups of coffee a day have been shown to have the potential to damage a foetus and can also reduce male fertility), tobacco, alcohol and recreational drugs.

3   Get plenty of exercise, fun and sleep so that your body, mind and emotions are in top condition.

4   Avoid inhaling or using toxic chemicals or other pollutants such as cleaning materials aerosol spray and insect repellents.

5   Go for a medical check-up to make sure that there are no problems such as genetically inherited diseases and stop taking the contraceptive pill.

6   Wear clothes made from natural fibres and avoid using hair dyes and commercial skin and hair preparations that contain propylene glycol. Propylene glycol is a petroleum derivative and a major ingredient in brake and hydraulic fluid. Material safety data sheets on this product warn to avoid skin contact as it is systemic and can cause dermatitis, liver abnormalities and kidney damage. When you read the labels on skin and hair products for both children and adults you will find that almost all contain this ingredient.

THE MIDDLE

You are pregnant and the exciting part begins!

All the suggestions for pre-conception are even more important now that you are pregnant although I wouldn't advise a liver cleansing diet at this stage.

There are three main ways in which toxins (as well as the 'good stuff') enter our systems:

We swallow them in food and drink where they are carried via the digestive system throughout the body.

We breathe them into our lungs from where they enter the bloodstream and are carried to the organs.

The third and partially unrecognised way is through the largest organ of the body - the skin. 

Everything that you eat, drink, inhale or put on your skin during pregnancy will filter through to your baby. If you suffer from allergies make every attempt to avoid the allergens or you may predispose the baby to the same allergies from which you suffer.

Try to avoid inhaling excessive traffic fumes and cigarette smoke and rid your home of allergens such as the dust mite by hanging bedding and pillows on the clothes line in sunshine for an hour once a week.

The following nutrients will be important in addition to those in the pre-conception section above:

Calcium is needed for strong bones and teeth together with magnesium for a healthy heart. It can be found in milk, cheese, broccoli, legumes, green-leafed vegetables, nuts, soya beans, tofu, tempeh, seeds, alfalfa, anise, dandelion greens, parsley, nettle and watercress.

Iron cures and prevents iron-deficiency anaemia, gives added resistance to disease and helps to prevent fatigue. The main sources when pregnant are kidney, heart, egg yolk, legumes, dried apricots and other dried fruits, legumes, shellfish, parsley, dandelion greens, garlic, land and watercress, nettle, parsley.

Drinking bottled or filtered water is especially important during pregnancy as lead, pesticides and bacteria have been found in tap water supplies. It's important to change the filters regularly.

THE END PRODUCT—THE BABY!

The things our babies eat and drink

It’s beyond the scope of this article to talk in depth about breast feeding but I would urge you, even if you have decided not to breast feed, to consider breast feeding for the first vital days when the baby will receive colostrum in the breast milk. This is a thin creamy coloured fluid, which contains constituents vital for the baby’s immunity to disease.

It has been estimated that at any given time the human body contains four hundred different chemicals that ought not to be there; some vegetables may contain fifteen different pesticide residues.

Babies and children are more at risk from pesticides than are adults for the following reasons:

Babies have more fat on their bodies than adults and pesticides are stored in fat.

On a volume-per-weight ratio, children eat more than adults.

The immune systems of babies and small children are not as strong as adults.

The government recommended maximum allowance of poison residues (such as pesticides) in foods are set for adults and not children.

These facts show us that it is important to protect our babies as much as possible by feeding both them and the breastfeeding mother organically grown food.

Dieldrin and the other organochlorines have a half life of 50 years and were enormously popular until the late eighties when the dangers attendant on their use were discovered. However, houses whose foundations were sprayed with Dieldrin to prevent termite invasion, pasture that was once used for root crops and your own back garden or the foundations of your home on which it may have been used are still very hazardous. Have the soil checked in case the breakfast egg from the chooks in your nice little yard is loaded with DDT or Dieldrin and don't grow root vegetables until your soil has been tested for these chemicals.

Hormone growth promotant is permitted in many feed-lots. Veal may contain antibiotics as a result of treatment given if the calf doesn't thrive—if it continues to do badly it is slaughtered and although the Agriculture Department does the best job it can, many of these young animals slip through the net and onto your table.

There are increasing numbers of pre-prepared baby foods on the supermarket shelves that state on the labels that the contents are 'organic'' The dictionary definition of the word organic is 'derived from life' so in the strictest sense this may not mean that the contents are free of pesticides and herbicides—let the buyer beware. Many of the companies have a 1800 free-call number and you could phone and ask if the raw materials in the range of foods are tested and declared herbicide and pesticide free. The more that the public demand these things the quicker they will happen but we must also be prepared to pay a little more for a while until all the manufacturers get the message! I called one company and was assured that all their raw materials were accredited but when I asked for a fax to confirm this I was met with a refusal—'not company policy'.

Government departments declare the pesticide levels in food to be within a safe margin (and I repeat that the 'safe margin' is determined on adult consumption, not babies or children) but 'safe' doesn't mean healthy and certainly these tests can be misleading and inaccurate. Testing for effects of chemicals is usually done on animals who are subjected to only one or two chemicals at a time. This is totally unrealistic as, during a day a human may ingest dozens of different chemicals. There may be a cumulative and synergistic effect of this multiple entry of poisons that hasn't been explored. As you may be aware a synergistic effect happens when two or more elements are combined and together form a separate and more powerful combination. Vegetables are usually tested by blending together a huge batch of the particular vegetable and testing for the average pesticide level. Supposing that one quarter of the content is heavily contaminated with pesticides but the remaining three quarters is fairly free of them then the results would probably show an 'acceptable' level of poisons. How are we to know that we haven't purchased vegetables from the same source as the heavily contaminated ones?

The only way to ensure that we are receiving the lowest possible amount of pesticides in food is to either grow as many of our own veggies and fruit as possible or to buy certified organically grown produce (to me that means grown on unpolluted soil and unsprayed). I realise that at the moment these vegetables and fruit are expensive but if you can only afford to buy while you are pregnant and for your children then it's good to do it. The more we, the public demand pesticide-free fruit and vegetables the sooner the growers will begin to respond. We need however to take our share of responsibility for the state of affairs that exists as we demand blemish free fruit and veggies and ignore that which has a caterpillar on it or leaves with a few holes. We also grumble about the extra cost of organically grown fruit and vegetables without appreciating the work that has been involved in creating the end product. If the produce that we buy isn't grown free of pesticides then we need to wash all green leafed vegetables several times and peel everything else, which is pretty sad as the highest proportion of goodies are often to be found just under the skin and the skin is also a valuable source of dietary fibre. Even peeling won't get rid of all pesticide residues as many are systemic and are in the flesh of the fruit or vegetable.

You and your family will benefit from drinking water from which the chlorine has been filtered. Many years ago I was talking to a friend who is a pharmacist and he commented that the eight glasses of water that I drink daily could be doing me more harm than good if it was chlorinated. Try to avoid buying water in plastic containers as plastic 'gasses off' if left in the sun or other heat and elements from the plastic enter the water. Children have developed asthma-like symptoms after swimming in a chlorine treated pool. Others develop coughs and sore throats.

The air our babies breathe

The air we breathe passes into our lungs and from there to our blood streams where it's carried around our bodies. Much of the air is polluted by factory emissions, fumes from traffic and pesticides but our homes are possibly the worst offenders with air polluted by cigarette smoke, pet hair, dust and dust mites, cleaning powders and liquids and aerosol sprays.

Chlorine gas is released in hot bath or shower water and if there is insufficient ventilation provided the breathing in of this gas can result in a general feeling of unwellness, lassitude, nausea or other symptoms. It's good to either keep the windows and door open or install an efficient fan.

Apart from the dangers of inhalation, thousands of children are treated each year as a result of drinking or eating garden pesticides and household cleaners. Natural cleaners are both cheaper and safer. The following recipes are from my book Nerys Purchon's Handbook of Natural Remedies but there are many good books available that are dedicated to 'green' housekeeping and gardening recipes and tips.

Fresh air is much better for babies than is air conditioning, particularly if the air conditioning unit isn't kept in top condition. Free-standing evaporative air conditioners can have a few drops of an essential oil such as lavender or eucalyptus added to the water to help to keep the air free from bacteria. Roof mounted evaporative conditioners don't recycle the air within the house and I feel are possibly safer to use than refrigerated systems that recycle the same air. If you have a refrigerated air conditioning system you can spray a sponge with the air spray described below and place it in the air flow—preferably on the return air side. During times of heavy usage, the sponge will need to be refreshed at least every day. The amount of essential oil in the recipe is suitable for babies over the age of three months and after they are two years old the amount of essential may be doubled.

Air sprays can be antibacterial, antifungal and antiviral and may be used to help prevent the spread of sickness, to relieve stress and insomnia and to deodorise the air. They are particularly useful in the kitchen and toilet where they can be used to spray both the air and the surfaces, thus killing viruses and bacteria and helping to deodorise the area.

Air sprays are made by adding 30 drops of lavender (or other) essential oil to 2 tablespoons of cider vinegar in a 300ml (10 fl oz) spray bottle. Allow the ingredients to dissolve together, and then top up the bottle with purified water.

Hanging duvets, pillows, blankets and other bed covers on the clothes line in the sun once a week, getting rid of wall to wall carpets (particularly in the baby's room) and replacing them with rugs that can be regularly hung on a clothes line and beaten will certainly help to lessen dust, dust mites and animal fur. The contents of the spray cans that lurk under our kitchen and laundry sinks can present a pollution problem and are also a poisoning hazard; young children don't smell or taste from bottles—they upend them and drink. Replacing them with environmentally and human friendly cleaning products like bicarbonate of soda, borax, vinegar and essential oils such as tea tree, lavender and eucalyptus will keep our homes sweet smelling and clean and our lungs breathing in less chemicals. An added bonus will be that we will have much more money in our pockets. 

Spending as much time as possible having fun with our family on the beach or forest and filling our lungs with clean windswept air is something that most of us can achieve at the weekend. It will help to boost our spirits, strengthen our immune systems and counteract the pollutants that have collected in our lungs during the working week.

The things we put on our babies skin

We come now to one of my pet hobby horses, that of skin and hair care products. Anything with a molecule smaller than water will penetrate the skin and enter the bloodstream. We need to be as careful with what we put on our skin as we are with the food that goes into our mouths and the air that enters our lungs. In the last forty years or so skin and hair preparations have become billion dollar earners for the multi national companies. They thrive on the desire of humans to look young and prey on the parents who want to do the right thing for their babies. They promote the myth that in order to be attractive you must be young and totally wrinkle free and that in order to be a good parent you need to buy their product in order to do the best for your baby. They part us from our money by using beguiling advertising, attractive packaging and a promise of eternal youth. What happens is that they line their own pockets by selling bottled chemical broth that, because it's so synthetic and heavily preserved, will live forever on the bathroom shelf and will live also in our already chemically overloaded bodies.

Thirty years ago I worked for a while for one of the largest cosmetic companies in the world. The marketing manager came from America to Perth to promote a new lipstick. The seminar took place in secret behind locked doors and this woman stood on a podium bragging that the lipstick would retail at $6.50 (a heap of money in those days) and cost 5c to produce. This was met with thunderous applause by the assembly. The bottle or can that contains soft drink, moisturiser or any other product usually costs more than the contents. Commercial skin and hair care products are all relatively new but prior to their appearance most women, men and babies had clear skin and shining hair and used only simple ingredients such as honey, eggs, olive oil, soap, water , lemon juice and vinegar to achieve this.

When a baby is born it's partly covered in a greasy substance called vernix caseosa. This covering is thought to protect the skin while the baby is floating in amniotic fluid. It can't be removed with water but comes away easily with oil (see below for an oil blend) leaving the skin soft, full of moisture and smooth. Some hospitals use a commercial baby wash which, as it's merely a mild detergent, strips away the natural oil on the baby's skin leaving it dry so that a moisture cream is then needed!! If a baby is 'overcooked' it's sometimes born with areas of dry skin but this is easily corrected with a once or twice daily application of sweet almond oil applied while the skin is still moist from bathing.

Light paraffin oil that comes from crude petroleum is sold as a body oil for babies. It coats the body with a film that suffocates the skin and prevents the entry of essential oxygen and release of carbon dioxide. This film can also result in creating unhealthy, immature, waterlogged and sensitive skin. When emulsified in a moisture lotion some of the paraffin oil can penetrate the skin and absorb and carry the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K out of the body in faeces. If the oil is used extensively over a period of time this could lead to a deficiency of these vital nutrients. Vegetable, nut and seed oils also collect the oil soluble vitamins but the oil and vitamins are then absorbed in the digestive process and remain in the body.

The only skin care that a new-born baby needs is water and cold pressed nut, seed and vegetable oils such as sweet almond, jojoba and olive and after the first 48 hours the tiniest amount of essential oil may be added. Lovely natural creams to prevent nappy rash are both easy and inexpensive to make and, (when absolutely necessary, as too much dusting powder can create a problem) a delicate dusting powder is as near as your store cupboard. 

Following is the formula for one of the top brand baby products currently on the market. The only natural ingredient in it is water, the remainder is a broth of laboratory chemicals, some of which have been shown to be harmful and all of which are unnecessary. The reason for the manufacture of this type of baby product is not (as the advertisements would have you believe) that they care passionately about the welfare of your baby but to cash in on the desire of every parent to do the best that they can for their child.

This particular moisturiser was typical of all similar items on the supermarket shelf as they all contained the same types of ingredients.

Water

Propylene glycol

Myristyl myristate

Glyceryl stearate

Stearic acid

Oleic acid

Polysorbate 6

Stearoxytrimethylsilane

Stearyl alcohol

Synthetic beeswax

Benzyl alcohol

Carboner

Butyl paraben

Propyl paraben

Methyl paraben

Sodium hydroxide

B & H

Fragrance