I just read an excellent blog posting I wanted to share with you!   Safbaby.com just uploaded this new article on 12 ways to keep your baby and kids toxin-free in 2010.  Many of the tips will be a refresher for some (avoid the dreaded BPA is by now hopefully familiar advice for all parents), and some may be new issues you may want to consider for your family (avoiding corn syrup and food additives etc.)

Safbaby.com is run by two moms who provide great info on raising your baby in a toxin-free environment.

The article is nteresting reading for sure, with lots of links to more in-depth articles for further research. Hope it helps make your home and life more safe for your little ones!

Today we have a guest post from Barbara Nyke, a Toronto interior designer who specializes in eco-friendly design:

Children have been experiencing an unprecedented rise in chronic disease and illness such as cancer, autism, asthma, birth defects, ADD / ADHD, and learning and developmental disabilities. The Learning Disabilities Association of Canada has linked many of these outcomes to unregulated toxic chemicals that we use in our homes.

The benefits of choosing a sustainably-manufactured product for your home are numerous. The top three reasons are:

1. the product has been made by not depleting the earth’s resources 
2. the company is practicing responsible manufacturing methods 
3.   the product can help to improve your home’s indoor air quality; particularly of importance for a newborn and children. 

Indoor air quality can be, and typically is, many more times polluted than outdoor air because of the hundreds of items we bring into our homes.  The important sources of air pollution in the home include, but isn’t limited to: furniture, vinyl flooring, new carpets and carpet adhesives, paints, vinyl wallpapers and household cleaning products.

Some products contain VOCs, volatile organic compounds, which are chemicals like formaldehyde, styrene, toluene, formaldehyde, and a variety of benzenes found in carpeting, dyes, pesticides, fungicides, fire retardants and anti-stain coatings; These are frequently released into the air indoors.  Considering that we spend 90% of our time indoors, this is an important element to address.

All consumers would be better off to avoid chemicals like these that are known to be carcinogenic, toxic to reproductive organs and endocrine disrupting.

Decorating green on a budget

We all want to save money.  When it’s time to decorate a nursery, there are ways to save money, but there are also areas that we shouldn’t scrimp on.  Earlier generations relied on hand-me downs for cribs, clothing and toys.  I don’t think this sharing has ever waned in popularity, primarily for the sake of saving money, because children grow out of these items quickly and due to the benefit of recycling clothes and items.  Nowadays, there are plenty of stores that have taken this idea commercial and resell used products.

Visit  garage and antique sales to find lamps, rocking chairs and dressers to refinish and repaint.  An environmental and cost-effective paint would be a mid-cost, good quality eggshell, low-VOC, water-based paint, approximately $40.  Going this route is a an inexpensive way to have a non-odorous room, that with standard paints and oil paints can take up to a couple of months to off-gass depending on the level of ventilation.  Naturally-made milk paint is another alternative, but is costlier.

For flooring, an economical way to get broadloom on a budget is to choose an end-of-roll piece that has already off-gassed and is cheaper than buying a new cut.

-Barbara Nyke, Eco-Designer, NIKKA DESIGN, www.nikkadesign.ca

For more information on designing healthier rooms for kids, visit the Kai Kids Fall Trunk Show in Toronto this Saturday, Oct. 17, from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. At 11:30 a.m. Barbara will be doing a free half-hour session for parents with time for questions afterwards.

We recently had our third baby, another precious life to nurture, sustain and protect. Back when we had Kai, our first son, almost five years ago, I was just starting to become aware about the toxic load carried in most common paints and household building materials.

When my helpful mother-in-law painted Kai’s room for us, I bought her a low VOC, fairly non-toxic paint to use that wouldn’t off gas hazardous chemicals into the air my baby-to-be was about to breathe. I recall it was called Eco-Spec and I had to hunt high and low to find it. However, just a few years later,  there are now many easily available lines of chemical-free paint and greener reno supplies on the market.

If you are adding a new addition to your family of either sort – a beautiful baby or a new family room, there is a lot you need to know if you truly want to make an interior non-toxic and healthy for your family and the planet.

Over the next week, we will have a guest blogger writing about how to Design Healthy Rooms for Healthy Kids. Barbara Nyke of NIKKA DESIGN in Toronto is an interior decorator who specializes in eco-friendly design.

Barbara believes that incorporating green and healthy living into our lives on a daily basis affects every aspect of what we buy, the products we use, how we dispose of items and the air we breathe.

Check back, as she will be addressing:

•  
  

  What makes a healthy room?

• How do you know the products you’ve chosen are eco-friendly?

• What does eco-friendly mean?

• Can you have it all? What are your environmental priorities when selecting products for your children’s bedrooms?

• Are you finding the style of furniture you want that’s also eco-friendly?
  

Well, we’ve taken a bit of a hiatus from hosting our Kai Kids in person sales lately!  A new baby has a way of sweetly derailing the best of intentions. But we are starting to settle into a new routine and have time to refocus on the business once again, so are planning a fall sale on Sat. Oct. 17th!

Same place, 1390 Danforth Ave., same time, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., but with one big difference:

this time we are going to feature a special information session on Designing Healthy Rooms for Healthy Kids, by Toronto interior decorator and eco-designer Barbara Nyke of NIKKA DESIGN. Barbara is an accredited interior decorator who specializes in eco-friendly design, and has spoken widely on the topic on CBC Radio, Breakfast Television,  Canada AM, in the National Post and Loulou Magazine, and recently at The Green Home Show.

Send us your questions for Barbara and she’ll be happy to answer them for you during her talk at our sale! Either post them by commenting here on our blog, or email us at infoatkaikids.com (please replace at with @ – we are trying to avoid auto-spam here).

So make sure to join us for a hands-on look at our latest products, some special discounts, and Barbara’s talk on keeping toxins out of your toddler’s room. She will be doing a short presentaion at 11:30 with a question period after.

Mark your calendars!

Check out The Toronto Star today for an excellent, personal piece by reporter Francine Kopun on trying to get through a typical family’s week without plastic. It sounds like a real challenge. Depressing really, to think of how reliant we’ve become on the stuff, and just how impossible it is to completely avoid it!

Kopun tries to avoid plastic food packaging and find plastic-free alternatives to tupperware containers, plastic bags and water bottles. And great news for us, she found some at our online eco store, Kai Kids!

Since the article hit the web and newsstands this morning, we’ve almost sold out of one of our newest green products: organic cotton mesh produce bags. They are washable, reusable and very handy for the grocery store or farmer’s market. If you came to Kai Kids searching for them and we don’t have enough of the size you would like, please email us at info@kaikids.com. We are now taking preorders for a new shipment due midweek!

Is your family surrounded by a sea of plastic gadgets, toys, bottles, bags, and containers? Looking for ways to cut back to help ;protect the planet and reduce your family’s toxic load?

I just wrote an article for the fabulous parenting site BabyontheWay.ca, all about trying to pare our family’s life of plastics and suggesting lots of alternatives.

Hope you’ll have a read. And if you are looking to purge some plastic from your household, our Kai Kids online store has lots of options for food and drink storage, utensils etc.  Have a look at these:

• Stainless Seal nestable food containers
• Greentainer lunch containers
  
• Klean Kanteen
• The Safe Sippy
• Bambu bowls and utensils
• Mimi the Sardine bibs, aprons and lunch bags

If any of you parents out there still haven’t made the switch to natural, chemical-free shampoo, soaps, bodywashes and lotions for your families, a new study should help convince you.

A report by the  Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, released yesterday, found major brands such as Johnson & Johnson, Baby Magic, Huggies and Mustela to be contaminated with cancer-causing carcinogens formaldehyge and 1.4 dioxin. Formaldehyde can also trigger skin rashes in some children.

Babies and children are far more vulnerable to the harmful effects of toxins and carcinogens ingested and absorbed through the skin due to their small size.  Their organs are still developing, and their bodies are less able to detoxify and excrete chemicals.

These substances are contaminents that get into the products during the manufacturing process and as such, are not listed on ingredient labels. 1.4 dioxin is a byproduct of a chemical processing technique that makes products bubbly and formaldehyde is released in the bottles and containers over time from preservatives used to prolong shelf-life.

In Canada, both formaldehyde and 1.4 dioxin are on Health Canada’s cosmetics hotlist, which means they cannot be used as ingredients in personal-care products, but are allowed in trace amounts in levels higher than those detected in yesterday’s study. There are a few exceptions for formaldehyde, which is permitted as in ingredient at low concentrations to provide antimicrobial preservation.

For the study, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics commissioned an independent laboratory to test 48 common children’s products for 1,4-dioxane; 28 of those products were also tested for formaldehyde. The lab found that:

• 17 out of 28 products tested – 61 percent – contained both formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane
• 23 out of 28 products – 82 percent – contained formaldehyde at levels ranging from 54 to 610 parts per million (ppm).
• 32 out of 48 products – 67 percent – contained 1,4-dioxane at levels ranging from 0.27 to 35 ppm.

More than 60 percent of products tested contained both toxins, including Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, L’Oreal Kids Extra Gentle 2-in-1 Fast Dry Shampoo, Huggies Naturally Refreshing Cucumber & Green Tea Baby Wash, Gerber’s Grins & Giggles Milk & Honey Baby Wash. Bubble bath products branded with popular children’s characters also tested positive for both chemicals, including Barbie, Dora the Explorer, Sesame Street, Hot Wheels and Tinker Bell.

Here are some tips to ensure what you buy for your family is non-toxic and safe:

• Use natural and organic products. (Kai Kids carries some excellent chemical-free lines: Dimpleskins, TruKid, Bare Organics, Little Twig,  and Earth-Friendly Baby)
• Look for ingredients you recognize: jojoba oil, coconut oil, olive oil, beeswax,  glycerin, rosemary extract (a natural preservative), grapefruit oil, calendula, cocoa butter, Vitamin E oil, etc.
• Read labels carefully and avoid products you can’t pronounce and those containing: parabens, sodium laureth sulfates,  polyethylene glycol, phthalates, petrolatum/mineral oil/paraffin, glycols, MEA/DEA/TEA, PVP/ acrylates, DMDM hydantoin/ diazolidinyl urea/ methylisothiazolinone

Obviously, the price for all-natural, chemical-free and organic shampoos and lotions is higher, as the ingredients and manufacturing processes are more costly. But what I’ve found as a parent who switched to natural skincare products back when I was pregnant with our oldest son, now 4, is that natural skincare products seem to be more concentrated and last a lot longer. That means you definitely get your money’s worth. One small tin of Bum Bum Balm lasted me almost nine months of mulitple diaper changes a day, and one bottle of Organic Chamomile Shampoo & Body Wash got me through six months of bathtime for my two children!

I think it’s because the ingredients are quality and pure and there are no fillers, but I’m starting to suspect that aside from being full of toxic chemicals, conventional drugstore products are made so that you go through them quickly and will buy more!

As if parents don’t have enough to worry about already what with toxic baby bottles and lead in toys, this week it was reported that many common brands of baby shampoo, powder, creams and lotions contain high levels of dangerous pthalates, a chemical used to stabilize fragrance and soften plastic.It’s the same chemical found in many plastic and vinyl baby teethers and bibs, which is why at Kai Kids we only sell organic cotton teething toys and bibs.A study in the February issue of the journal Pediatrics revealed high concentrations of these hormone-disrupting chemicals in the urine of the babies studied between 2000 and 2005. All had detectable amounts of at least one type of phthalate, and more than 80% had seven or more types. The babies in the study had more than four times the amount in their urine than babies whose parents did not use the products.More than half the mothers in the study reported using baby shampoos on their infants within 24 hours of the urine tests, and about one-third had used lotion, and 14% used baby powder.The more the mothers used the various products, the higher the levels found in their babies’ urine, leading researchers to suspect that the skin absorbs and transfers the chemicals into babies’ bodies. The highest levels were found in babies under eight months old.Exposure to pthalates could reduce testosterone and alter reproductive organs. Very scary. And Canadian and U.S. manufacturers aren’t currently required to list pthalate contents on their packaging!When you are shopping, look for products labeled “phthalate-free,” or check labels for common phthalates, including DEP and DEHP. I recommend Earth-Friendly Baby, a natural, organic, chemical-free baby skincare line from Australia that we recently started to carry at Kai Kids. No pthalates and a label that lists all of the ingredients!When we had Kai three years ago, I had read about pthalates and tried to find natural babycareproducts that didn’t contain them. But it was only recently that I weaned myself off of lotions and my favourite perfume, which are both full of the toxic chemical. But happily, it’s now easy to find safe, nice-smelling alternatives for the whole family.-N