April 22, 2009   

Save on Natural Diapers and Wipes

To all you moms and moms-to-be, Happy Earth Day, from our home to yours! To show our love for the planet and all things green, Real Savvy Moms.com is proud to officially announce the birth of our “Real Savvy Moms Go Green” campaign. We’re kicking things off with the introduction of Environmental Expert Jennifer Taggart, who joins the Real Savvy Moms team of A-list experts this month. As an environmental attorney, mom of two, and author of the forthcoming Smart Mama’s Guide to Going Green, Taggart is the perfect person to guide our readers on green matters and raising children green.

You’ll also want to check out our eco-friendly content, experts, video, tools, a marketplace and more.

Another area that we moms can’t seem to get enough info on: cleaning the home. Once you become a mom, tackling germ hotspots, like the entryways, bathroom and kitchen, are top priority—especially when you’ve got a curious toddler exploring every nook and cranny on her hands and knees! But how to clean well while avoiding harmful and irritating cleaners found in so many household cleaning products? Have no fear, Dr. Alan Greene is here! Check out this fun and informative video where he helps Liz Brandt, a mom of three, make the switch to green cleaning using Seventh Generation products. And since diapers and wipes are the mainstay of any home with wee ones, you’ll also learn why Seventh Generation’s line of diapers, wipes and laundry detergent is giving moms good reason to stock up. Of course, the money-saving coupon we’ve attached here is another good reason!

Be Well,

Maureen Connolly
Editor, Real Savvy Moms.com

Green Relief for Expectant Moms
By RSM Expert Doula Jill Wodnick, M.A., C.D. (DONA)

Looking to mother earth—and all that she has to offer you during pregnancy—is one of the best ways to support green thinking and a healthy body during pregnancy.
Here, a few simple tips:

• Kale, kale, kale. Kale is a great way to get aid calcium absorption during pregnancy. Make it a regular part of your diet by steaming, sauteeing or adding kale to soups. An added bonus: It also improves digestion and can reduce leg cramps.
• Nettle tea. Nettle tea has been applauded for increasing vitamin K levels, which aid in reducing post-partum bleeding. Brewed and used consistently in pregnancy, nettle tea is a tonic that reduces back pain. Try it sweetened with raw honey four times a day.
• Cucumbers. These green fresh veggies are the perfect antidote to help reduce swelling. Aim for eating one cucumber a day; add to a salad, snack on cucumber strips dipped in garlic yogurt, add slices to water with fresh lemon, and enjoy!
• Mantra meditation, a phrase that is used over and over again, is an ideal way to invite more emotional health into our self talk. A mantra meditation for pregnancy can be as simple as the Sanskrit phrase 'Sat Nam', a general phrase for peace and truth that is often used to connect pregnant women with the natural world. Used in correlation with your inhalation and exhalation, try this during your next prenatal non stress test or ultra sound as a tool to quiet the mind.
• Color the breath. Need to wait for a train? Stuck in traffic or standing in line a grocery store? You can consciously color your breath anywhere you are, no need to close your eyes. Infusing the inhale with a color, like green, helps to balance the respiration and increase oxygenation as when we focus on the breath, we do less shallow breathing. Deeper breathing is ideal for baby and for you.

Jill Wodnick is the creator of the relaxation CD Prenatal Peace & Calming. (www.cdbaby.com/cd/jillwodnick)

Safer Toys for Tots
By Real Savvy Moms Green Living Expert Jennifer Taggart

You probably won’t find much resistance from your family if you swap disposable plastic for reusable shopping bags, buy yourself greener beauty products, or choose eco-friendly cleaners. But trying to go green with your child’s toys? A bit more of a challenge. In our media-driven consumer society, children prefer toys featuring popular characters, such as Cinderella or Transformers or SpongeBob. Not many of the licensed characters come in green toy options—at least so far.

That being said, going green includes buying less, so perhaps one of the easiest steps is just to limit the toys. For holidays and parties, you can ask relatives and friends to give consumable items, such as art or gardening supplies, or experience gifts, such as tickets or passes for ice skating, roller skating, the zoo, movies, or batting cages or anything else you can dream up. You can also have toy swap parties to pass along gently used toys.

Of course, you won’t get away with eliminating all toys. When buying new toys, opt for eco-friendly options if possible and choose wood or fiber over plastic. Why skip plastic? Plastic toys are made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource, and also end up in our landfills.

Wood toys are a great solution for replacing plastics. Choose solid wood over pressed woods to avoid formaldehyde, a carcinogen. While the amount of lead in paints and coatings is limited under federal law, recalls over the last several years demonstrate that compliance is not as complete as it should be. To avoid lead in paints and coatings, look for wood toys colored with vegetable dyes or those finished with walnut oil, linseed oil, pure tung oil (be careful – sometimes “tung oil finish” is used as a generic term to describe a wetted wood finish) or with beeswax. To protect our trees, look for the Forestry Stewardship’s seal indicating that the wood used was sustainably harvested.

Don’t forget fiber-based toys. If you can, choose fiber toys made from organic fibers. Organically grown natural fibers will be grown without pesticides. Also, try to skip fibers treated with formaldehyde. The giveaway? If the fiber is easy care or wrinkle resistant. If your textile toy has padding, opt for padding that isn’t polyurethane foam. Polyurethane foam releases volatile organic compounds, which can contribute to headaches, nausea, allergic reactions and even cancer, depending on the specific compound. Also, polyurethane foam usually is treated with a flame retardant to reduce flammability. Just check the fiber content label.

If you are buying plastic toys, then opt for safer plastics. One plastic you probably want to steer clear of is polyvinyl chloride or vinyl (also known as PVC). Vinyl must be stabilized and is often stabilized with lead. Lead is a potent neurotoxin and can slow development. Lead doesn’t like being in the plastic matrix, so it migrates to the surface of toys where it can be picked up during handling. There is a new federal law that limits the amount of lead in all toys (actually, all children’s products), but it was just implemented this year so compliance may not yet be complete. Vinyl also usually has hormone disrupting phthalates, although phthalates are also limited under the new federal law.

There are lost of options out there for greener toys, even at mainstream retailers. But for the widest selection of sustainable, greener materials, you’ll want to look online.

Jennifer Taggart is a mom of two, an environmental attorney, and the author of forthcoming The Smart Mama’s Guide to Going Green.

Heavy Breathing
By Geoff Davis

As a country, we're used to the idea that air pollution is bad for our health. What hasn't really sunk in yet is the fact that the most problematic air we encounter is often found not outdoors, but inside our homes. This wisdom flies in the face of the basic instinct that tells you that your home is the one place where you can safely shut the door on what ails the world. Yet when we bolt that lock, we're frequently locking ourselves in with bigger troubles.

Case in point is a new study from Johns Hopkins, which finds that the risk of asthma rises with the increase in air pollution inside the home. The study is one of many that have recently connected the quality of the air kids are breathing at home with the number of emergency room visits they make for asthma attacks.

The problem is especially acute in places like Baltimore, where an incredible one-in-five children suffer from this condition. No wonder social workers there are now going door-to-door distributing vacuums with HEPA filters. It's about time.

The problem is that most people just don't realize how much garbage there can be in indoor air and how much of that gunk they're inadvertently creating themselves. Fearful of disease, they banish pests with toxic pesticides. Odors are covered up with synthetic air fresheners that are worse than the problem they "solve." Chemical cleaners just end up making a bigger mess. Then there are the things that even allegedly well-informed people like me don't know about. For instance: third-hand smoke.

That's right. Not first- or second-hand smoke but third-hand smoke, which consists of the toxins that get left behind when cigarette smoke settles on clothing, skin, hair, and anything else that's on or near smokers. Researchers say some 90% of everything a smoker exhales can stick to soft surfaces. Smoking outdoors is no solution because smokers simply carry the resulting contaminants back inside; the levels of tobacco poisons in the homes of outside-only smokers are still up to seven times higher than they are in the air of non-smoker homes. And those smokers are still exhaling poisons for two minutes after their last puff. All of this means that regardless of where they do it, smokers themselves are a source of toxin exposure.

If there's a lesson here it's that you can't be too careful. What we don't know can hurt us, and there's a lot we still don't know. In my house, we've distilled it all down to a couple of simple rules that keep us breathing easier:

First, our windows see action even in the dead of Vermont's perilous winter because even the healthiest home (which I'm sure ours isn't!) can benefit from some fresh air. Two, we keep it natural. So if nature didn't make it or it's not made from stuff that nature made, we're not bringing it home without a good hard look. This is easier said than done, but even trying leaves us better off. Lastly, precaution rules the roost. So it's guilty until proven innocent where consumer products and new technologies are concerned. That makes us perhaps a bit Luddite, but we're not keen on being anyone's atmospheric guinea pig, and we know we're better safe than sorry, no matter how tempting a product may be.

Those are our rules for a safer atmosphere and a healthier house. If you've got others, please share them!

This blog entry was originally posted on Seventh Generation’s website, www.seventhgeneration.com.

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