The Complete Organic Pregnancy

Welcome to the latest MotherTalk blog book tour: The Complete Organic Pregnancy!

"What the heck does Shannon, never TTC'd, never been pregnant, never given birth, know about pregnancy?" you ask?

Well, not so much from a direct experience standpoint. But there have been, are and will be plenty of pregnant people in my life, and as you know, I am an organic-natural-humane-ecologically sound-local-poison-free-food nutjob to the extreme. And I am loving this book--pregnant or not. It tells you how to start doing all the things I've been doing for Nat since she was born, before your baby is born, sometimes even before your baby is conceived. I am never letting a friend go through pregnancy without it, again.

As a part of the blog book tour, I was able to ask the authors three questions, for a Q&A to post here. I was pretty impressed with their responses. They will give you a sense of the book itself. Here they are:

Q: If an expectant mother could only change one thing in her environment or diet, what should it be and why?

A:We’re splitting hairs with this answer (to encourage moms to change a bit more than one thing!). If you’re talking about changing her environment, it depends on what environment. In “The Complete Organic Pregnancy” we talk about home environment and work environment. For home, we’d say the most important thing to do is to not renovate your home or a nursery even though the urge often strikes when pregnant. The chemicals that are released into the air during demolition, building, stripping, revarnishing, caulking, painting etc. aren’t safe for your growing baby. If you’re not renovating, the most important (and easiest) thing to do at home is to replace all conventional cleaning products (including laundry detergents, carpet cleaners, oven cleaners, bathroom scrubs etc.) with nontoxic ones. The ingredients in conventional cleaning products (think bleach and ammonia among others) are often carcinogenic, can harm lungs and eyes, and are sometimes hormone disruptors. Despite all of this, the companies that use them are not required to disclose their ingredients on their labels because they’re considered trade secrets. Nontoxic cleaners, which can easily be found at health food stores or chain stores like Whole Foods, are a much better option for growing babies and for mom.

We realize you have less control over your work environment than you do over your home environment, so the most important thing to do at work is to try to raise awareness. Ask your boss if it would be possible use better cleaning products (the company has to buy them anyway…). And try to sit away from things like copiers and Xerox machines and near a window that opens, if at all possible.

With regard to diet: buy organic whenever possible. Join a CSA (community supported agriculture) which is a less expensive way of buying organic veggies (and sometimes fruit and meat) and support a local farm at the same time. If you can’t find organic meat, make sure to buy pastured and hormone and antibiotic free. Same goes for dairy. And always choose whole foods – things as close to how they came out of the earth as possible – over packaged foods (processing makes them less nutritious).

Q: I heard a story on NPR once about the breast milk of certain Native Alaskan women being so toxic as to be labeled a bio-hazard (after repeated testing). This was due to bio-magnification of toxins in the whale blubber that constituted the majority of their diet. Should mothers in any part of the U.S. be concerned that a toxic environment could be contaminating their breast milk? How can a breast-feeding mother check for this?

A:In the book we have 27 diaries on many topics pertaining to what it means to have an organic pregnancy. One of these diaries is written by Florence Williams, who wrote a fascinating story for The New York Times Magazine in January 2005 about testing her breastmilk (she sent it halfway around the world to have it checked for pollutants). Breastmilk is sadly somewhat contaminated by chemical pollutants that have made their way into our food, water, and our bodies (flame retardants, jet fuel, and the like). If you live in an environment where whale blubber is your main diet, or if you happen to, as Williams writes in our book, live near the site of an industrial accident, then breastfeeding probably isn’t safe. In these instances, you may want to have it tested (though this isn’t easy or cheap). The majority of the American population doesn’t need to be tested. Moms should rest assured that even if their milk contains some toxins, as unfortunately all breastmilk does, studies show it is still the best and healthiest choice for their babies.

Q: What can we do--as expectant biological parents, as parents, as concerned citizens--to ensure that all babies get the kind of safe and healthy start recommended in your book? I ask as an adoptive mother to a child whose in-utero experience was filled with toxicity based on the poverty of her biological family.

A:Speak out – if there is something you don’t want to be breathing, a crop you don’t want to see genetically modified or even an ingredient you don’t want in your shampoo, write/email/call both the government and product manufacturers and let them know. Educate – tell people (friends, family, colleagues and especially your children who will inherit this world, toxins and all) what you know and what you’re learning. Vote for lawmakers who want to clean up the environment, and for those who want to ban packaged foods and bad nutrition from schools. And vote with your dollars, too – support local organic farms, frequent farmers’ markets, buy organic cotton, better paint, and nontoxic cleaning products. If you can’t find what you want for your home at stores around you, demand and get others to demand. Supply will follow. Make better choices at every turn. Buying organic produce means allowing a farmer (and a farmer’s family) to not have to breathe pesticides all day long. If you’re pregnant it will be better for your growing baby, but it is also better for all of the other babies in the world, too.

I was impressed with their answer to that last one. Because I am a socialist, I can be pretty critical of health advice that sounds like it is all about "me and my family" building a safety fence (whether of bricks and mortar or of clean, non-toxic food habits) around oursleves. In this particular subject area, that's kind of impossible anyway. As the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed, in upholding Clean Water Act regulations, what poisons your well will eventually poison mine. This matter of choosing food thoughtfully is not just a matter of doing something for yourself, but of doing something for the world at large. Activism in the form of political advocacy on these issues is better yet.

Thanks to the authors and their PR person for this book. Much as I feel silly keeping it, rather than giving it away to my next TTC friend, I sort of don't want to let it leave my shelf. It's just full of handy information that is plenty useful for pretty much anyone, not just pregnant women. So run, don't walk, to your nearest independent bookstore and buy this one. Okay, you can reserve it at your local public library too!

But read it. It's awesome. Really.

Comments

[mamamarta]

i've already heard buzz about this one -- i'll have to check it out!

i agree with you about your concern that folks eat/buy organic purely for their own safety. i do that too, for sure, but my main reason for supporting organic/local (more important to support local in my mind; many great farmers don't bother with organic certification because it's expensive and political) is political and economic.

[lexy zissu]

Hi Shannon,

I'm Lexy, one of The Complete Organic Pregnancy Authors. Deirdre and I both want to thank you so much for the write up and your positive feedback. This book was a long time in the making so it is thrilling to know we really are finally reaching the audience we want to reach. Keep the book for yourself by all means!

I'm also all for local over organic when possible (it just feels wrong to buy something flown in from New Zealand when I could choose something grown nearby instead). I struggled with that decision when I was pregnant and still do now that I'm breastfeeding -- I want to be as pesticide-free as possible. But I don't want to be supporting/paying for that kind of transportation (which has all sorts of environmental repercussions). I also want to keep my demand local, so there will still be local farms. During growing season (I live in New York so it is April-ish to November-ish), it is relatively easy for me to be organic and local. The winter is arguably tougher but I'm working on it.

Thanks again, Shannon.

-Lexy

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Nice bog you have here. I pretty much lurk the internet when I'm bored and read all I can about the organic lifestyle, but I really liked you view on things. I'll bookmark the site and subscribe to the feed!