Since the government does not regulate personal care products, the industry can use virtually any ingredient. Research conducted by the Environmental Working Group confirmed that 22% of personal care products, including children’s products, contain the cancer-causing contaminant 1.4-dioxide (Diamanti-Kandarakis et al. 2009)²³ According to the Environmental Working Group’s skin-deep database, over 25000 personal care products were found to contain parabens.
Avoid the nasties and look for safe, natural brands. A good way to check your products is on the ‘Skin Deep’ database or ‘Think Dirty – Shop Clean App. ²⁴
Women are given the standard warnings about cat litter, ibuprofen and soft cheese, but rarely do we hear a doctor or other birth professional mention reducing exposure to environmental toxins from household products, cosmetics, medications or vaccinations. Women all over the world are missing out on this vital information because it is not considered an important issue, when in fact it is at the core of many chronic health issues facing young children today. It is only through empowering yourself with the facts and listening to your intuition that you can truly make an informed choice.
Always use your own discernment when it comes to medical procedures, and don’t give in to bullying tactics – It's your body and your baby, and no one else has the authority to make those choices for you!
PRENATAL ULTRASOUNDS
"I believe it's time for women to connect to their intuition and demand more respect. It's time to shake things up, to ask questions, to find answers."
- Debra Pascali-Bonaro
For many mothers the common practice of routine prenatal ultrasounds is never even questioned. Ultrasounds have become so normalized in pregnancy that mothers rarely question the safety or necessity of them. In our modern world of convenience, where interventions are expected, most parents don't take the time to consider the alternatives.
During my pregnancies I decided early on that there was no need for me to have any ultrasounds. This might sound shocking to some people, but to me it was a conscious and informed choice. I was in good health, a low-risk mother and felt there was no need to subject my unborn child to something I felt offered little benefit, and that could have possible risks.
Mothers are often labeled as ‘irresponsible’ or ‘negligent’ for choosing to have a natural pregnancy. Ultrasounds are one of the many routine medical procedures that cannot be questioned or challenged in any way. When we look at all the research there are a lot of questions that need to be asked about why ultrasounds are recommended for ALL women.
What is an Ultrasound?
The term refers to the ultra-high frequency sound-waves used for diagnostic scanning. Ultrasound waves are emitted by a transducer, and a picture of the underlying tissues is built from the patterns which return. Ordinary scans use pulses of ultrasound that last only a fraction of a second. In contrast Doppler techniques, which are used in fetal monitors, use continuous waves, giving much higher levels of exposure than 'pulsed' ultrasound.
Why are Ultrasounds Used?
There are two main purposes for using ultrasounds in pregnancy – to investigate a possible problem at some stage of the pregnancy, or routine scans. With bleeding early in pregnancy, ultrasound may predict whether miscarriage is likely to occur. Later in pregnancy it can be used when a baby isn’t growing or in the case of suspected breech. Whilst the above cases are useful for gaining important information, the use of routine prenatal ultrasound has become the standard of care, even amongst healthy women.
The Real Risks of Prenatal Ultrasounds
The authors of a 2010 Cochrane review on fetal ultrasounds have stated this:
“Subjecting a large group of low-risk patients to a screening test with a relatively high false positive rate is likely to cause anxiety and lead to inappropriate intervention and subsequent risk of iatrogenic morbidity and mortality” (Alfirevic, Stampalija and Gyte, 2010).²⁵
In their article ‘Routine ultrasound in late pregnancy (after 24 weeks’ gestation)’, these authors found that “there is no evidence that routine ultrasound in late pregnancy improves perinatal outcome. Its use may increase the rate of caesarean section, and hence the risk of iatrogenic morbidity” (Bricker et al. 2008).²⁶
Like many other pregnancy and birthing interventions, we have been conditioned to think that what we are told to do must be the right thing to do. There is plenty of research to suggest that ultrasounds are not perfect and are certainly not recommended for routine use in low-risk pregnancies.
A Cochrane review on ultrasounds in 2015 also found the following:
"No clear benefit in terms of a substantive outcome measure like perinatal mortality can yet be discerned to result from the routine use of ultrasound" ²⁷ (Alfirevic et al. 2015).
There is evidence which suggests that ultrasounds can cause higher than safe levels of heat. The sonar beam can cause heating in the tissues being scanned. Doppler ultrasound which uses continuous rather than pulsed waves, has been found to cause significant heating, (especially in the baby's developing brain.)²⁸ During normal pregnancy increases in whole-body temperature up to 2.5 degrees C (36.5F) are considered safe. Heating in late-pregnancy fetal tissues exposed to normal pulsed and continuous Doppler ultrasound may be 1.4 - 5.8 degrees C (significantly higher than what is considered to be 'safe' levels.)
Both animal and human studies have shown that elevated temperature can cause abnormal development and even birth defects.
A Cochrane Review of routine ultrasound in late pregnancy concluded the following:
“There is no evidence that routine ultrasound in late pregnancy improves perinatal outcome. Its use may increase the rate of caesarean section, and hence the risk of iatrogenic morbidity. As a result of this review, it is not clear what aspects of late pregnancy ultrasound may be valuable in centres where it is undertaken” (Bricker et al. 2008).²⁹
One of the other issues with studies observing the effects of prenatal ultrasounds is that the scanning intensities today are up to 6-8 times higher than they were in the 1990s, when all of the large population-based studies assessing ultrasound safety were done.
Even the FDA (U.S. Food & Drug Administration) warns against the routine and medical unnecessary use of fetal ultrasounds. In a statement on their website, they warn that the long-term effects of heating and cavitation are unknown and that ultrasound scans should be done ‘only when there is a medical need, based on a prescription’.³⁰
A 2002 review of the safety of ultrasound in the prestigious journal of Epidemiology concluded:
“Until long-term effects can be evaluated across generations, caution should be exercised when using this modality during pregnancy.” ³¹
50 Studies that demonstrate potential dangers
There are now at least 50 Chinese studies that demonstrate the potential dangers of ultrasound use in pregnancy, including irrefutable evidence that human babies are always harmed in some way, whether it be subtle trauma or prenatal scars. (The causal studies were done on babies who were given diagnostic ultrasounds prior to scheduled abortions