Safe Alternatives for Baby and Child

Wow!  I personally dislike (using a nice word here) Monsanto for their corrupt and downright inhumane production of GMOs and pesticides.  Not only are they destroying our food, they are destroying our soil and the lives of innocent people/farmers.

Now I have just one more reason to “dislike” them.  I had no idea, but it is true, that Monsanto is the one responsible for the bovine growth hormone explosion that has tainted America’s cow milk supply!  Not only are they the manufacturers of genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH), but they additionally have helped make the laws state that if a company selling milk that does NOT contain the harmful bovine growth hormone they can NOT label it as so without a disclaimer stating that rBGH is not harmful.  In fact, Monsanto is actually suing several milk companies for putting the “hormone free” label on their milk!  This is crazy.   How can a corporation like Monsanto work such corruption into our system and then have the right to affix our laws to suit their corrupt deeds?  This is outrageous! Read the rest of this entry »

I was searching for a book that offers a holistic approach with zero side effects to most common health problems and was glad to stumble onto Dr. Randall Neustaedter’s book “The Holistic Baby Guide: Alternative Care for Common Health Problems”.  Randall Neustaedter is a licensed acupuncturist and doctor of Chinese medicine who has practiced and taught holistic medicine for more than thirty years in the San Francisco Bay Area.

His book covers a detailed alternative medical approach of Acupuncture, Homeopathy, Chinese Medicine and Nutritional Supplements for most common health problems in babies like colic, digestive problems, eczema, cradle cap, diaper rash, asthma, fevers, colds and ear infection.

We highly recommend The Holistic Baby Guide to parents who are looking for a gentler way to treat their young children’s health problems. Too many sick babies receive conventional treatments for their symptoms (with many side effects) by not taking care of the root problem, Dr. Neustaedter’s little patients see great improvement and usually get back to perfectly healthy children. I would also recommend this book as a MUST READ to all pediatricians!

After reading Dr. Neustaedter’s book I had a few additional questions I am sure a lot of other parents are wondering about.  When should I introduce grains into baby’s diet?  Can Omega 3, Vitamin D and Probiotics transferred from breastmilk to baby?  Which baby should get a stool sample done for yeast?  And more wonderful questions are answered by expert Dr. Randall Neustaedter, OMD below.  This Q&A along with this fantastic book is a wonderful gift for any parent! Read the rest of this entry »

It’s upsetting to know that the toxic chemicals used in stain-resistant children’s fabrics, pizza boxes, fast food containers, inks, nonstick cookware and many other products (being used on and around our children) are used without being safety tested.

We are happy to promote the  “I am Not a guinea Pig” campaign by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to push Congress to protect all Americans from the dangers of toxic chemicals by passing the strongest possible version of the Toxic Chemicals Safety Act (H.R. 5820) in the House and its companion bill, the Safe Chemicals Act, in the Senate.

For the future of our children, please take the time to make a difference by sending your email to congress (click on link at the end of our post to send email form, it’s a cinch we promise).  The following is directly from the  “I am Not a guinea Pig” informative and action taking website.

Many of the thousands of synthetic chemicals used in consumer products have never been required to go through safety testing.  Science is only beginning to understand how synthetic chemicals affect our health and the health of our planet, but we’ve learned even minute amounts of some of them may cause serious harm. Read the rest of this entry »

We recently posted a safe alternative sunscreen guide, see here, which included organic sunscreens, mineral based sunscreens, and chemical free sunscreens.  This guide itself took us months to prepare for and present in a format that was unique and informative in many ways.  If you have not seen it, we highly recommend it.

After posting our guide we received a few comments from our facebook fans (if you are not a fan please find us here) speaking their concerns with nanoparticles in sunscreens.  Yes!  We love this!  We love being parents, involved in a community of parents, looking to provide the most conscious products to our family on a daily basis.  We very much appreciate your comments and are honored to learn from them ourselves.  So, are nanosunscreens safe?

From those couple of comments I have come up with 9 pristine questions regarding the safety of nanoparticles for our babies and children.  And we have asked each and every one of our sunscreen manufacturers featured in our safe alternative sunscreen guide to answer them.  What a phenomenal way to dig deeper into the controversial concerns of nanoparticles and educate ourselves as parents on how to provide our children safe protection in a sunscreen.  Below we have added our questions and the answers from each manufacturer, in the order that they answered us back.

Enjoy, and keep those comments coming!  We are all in this together and we respect your concerns and are honored we can help find you answers.

Did you know that there are zero regulations here in the USA regarding nanosunscreens?  Did you know that in Europe there are laws regulating some nanoparticles in sunscreens and cosmetics?  Continue reading to find out more information on this topic that you may not have known about. Read the rest of this entry »

I love carrying my baby boy around in a baby carrier.  I’ve tested several baby carriers for this post and wanted to share my opinion with our  Safbaby readers. There is no perfect baby carrier for all ages and babies, so below are my 4 favorite carriers, which are not only eco-friendly, but also comfortable, well-made and stylish.

All of these carriers are organic and/or an eco-friendlier option to most other baby carriers. I rated them all by important criteria.  Depending on the age of your child and what you need the carrier for, this post should help you choose your perfect baby carrier(s).

My lucky little boy is spending lots of time being carried around. He loves going to the park, city sightseeing and watching his sister going down the slide at the neighborhood playground. The carrier is always in close contact to his skin and he occasionally chews on the carrier. That’s our top reason as to why it makes the most sense to use an non-toxic and eco-friendly baby carrier.

Many ‘conventional’ carriers can contain toxic dyes, formaldehyde, synthetic materials and other hazardous substances. The 4 carriers below comply with the GOTS standards and are certified in accordance with Oeko-Tex, Standard 100, a health and safety certification that guarantees it is free from hazardous substances.

I put the following eco-friendly baby carriers to the test: BABYBJÖRN Original Organic Baby Carrier, BABYBJÖRN Active Organic Baby Carrier, Ergo Baby Organic Baby Carrier and Kokopax Eco-Classic Framed Baby Carrier. Read the rest of this entry »

If you are looking for an organic line of baby food that is DELICIOUS and NUTRITIOUS, here you go!  Oh the reasons we love HappyBaby™ Pouches organic food for babies, tots and kids. Today we bring you the results from real moms, babies and tots testing a couple amazing organic meals and organic fruit purees that (again) unanimously ended in bowls being licked clean!  (When you have a picky eater this is something you want to shout from the mountain tops.)

Ultimately we as parents would provide the very best home-made baby food for our little ones with fresh and local produce and whole grains. Strive to do this as often as you can! But in a real world we find that this can be challenging to achieve 100% of the time.  We are busy and on-the-go, so finding a packaged baby food you can trust in, and that your kid will eat, is a gift.  And HappyBaby Pouches are packaged in BPA-free packaging!

HappyBaby™ has a line of premium organic baby foods, meals and finger foods that have all passed our prestigious testing regime.  HappyBaby’s PUFFS and MELTS have also most recently won our EXCELLENT SEAL OF APPROVAL AWARD for being safe alternative and supremely tasty baby finger foods.  Keep reading to find out what our mom testers have to say about these organic purees and meals.

Read the rest of this entry »

Arts and crafts is a gift to give to our children.  Sparking and encouraging that creativity in them is priceless.   Today we bring you a guide on some of the projects we have been loving creating with our children.  These arts and crafts are eco-friendly, green, a safe alternative to others readily available in big box stores (PVC-free, petrochemical free, recycled and reusable materials, water based and toxin-free), and down right FUN!  So get moving and start creating! Read the rest of this entry »

Lead is a serious toxin that surrounds our children in ways we don’t normally recognize.  We are reposting this article with permissions from on of the “Lead Ladies” and hope it brings light to the serious nature of lead.  We were so surprised to learn how easily this toxin can absorb into our bodies just from touching something like a purse!

The following post has be written by Joanna Cerazy, co-author of Lead Babies:

Purses are women’s devoted companions. Wherever we go – they go. We carry them with us most of the time. We clutch to them. We touch them constantly. They contain our precious belongings and it is not unusual to put our kids’ toys, pacifiers and snacks in them. Their straps share our shoulders with our babies. And as children put almost anything in their mouths, it is certainly not unheard of that we catch our offspring chewing on our purses, wallets and belts. The testing carried out by the Center for Environmental Health has shown that by simply touching a lead-containing purse concerning lead level can quickly be reached. Read the rest of this entry »

We have put to the test a wide variety of non-toxic, healthy, natural, chemical free, mineral based sunscreens and are happy to give you the low down on them all. Not only that, but we have some great coupon codes from the safest, mineral based sunscreen manufacturers so you can save money on that product that all families need right now, safe sunscreen!

We personally put each and every tube of sunscreen mentioned here to the test. There is nothing worse than buying an expensive tube of “natural sunscreen” and feeling like you’re all wrapped in saran wrap baking in the sun. We give you the low down as to how these sunscreens smell, feel, how they rub in, their consistency, their ingredients and other personal insights that will be of paramount help for you in considering the sunscreen that is right for your baby or child.

When purchasing a sunblock there are certain chemicals you should keep away from your children. What these chemicals are, what are nanoparticles, and how much sun is healthy exposure for Vitamin D support will also be addressed here. Yeah, all you need to know to keep your kids safe in the summer sun is right here! Pass it on and have a safe and sunny summer. Read the rest of this entry »

We put a lot of trust into ORGANIC products and think they are automatically safe because they are CERTIFIED ORGANIC. Lead seems to be everywhere, including in fruit juices and packaged fruits. Joanna Cerazy, co-author of Lead Babies shares with us the latest ‘LEAD’ news:

On June 9, 2010 the Environmental Law Foundation, a non-profit organization from Oakland, California, filed a Notice of Violation of California Proposition 65 alleging that lead was present in a variety of children’s and baby food.

More specifically, lead was reported to be contained in apple and grape juices, packaged pears and peaches (including baby food), as well as various fruit cocktails. Lead has been found in conventionally prepared as well as organic products. The Environmental Law Foundation claimed that single servings of these foods contained amounts of lead exceeding the allowed lead levels as prescribed by Proposition 65; of 368 samples of tested products, 125 were above the limit of 0.5 micrograms of lead per single serving.

The Environmental Law Foundation purchased a large number of samples of assorted brands of juices and fruit products around California and tested them in an EPA-sponsored lab. The results showed that many individual servings of these products contained lead levels that are above the federal daily limit established by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Read the rest of this entry »

When I read this article written for us by Deanna Minich, PhD, CN , a nutritionist and author of “An A to Z Guide to Food Additives: Never Eat What You Can’t Pronounce”, I thought about how grateful I am that my 4 year old daughter and I garden together.  Just another reminder of the importance of being close to our food and knowing how to read food labels.

Deanna Minich informs us about 10 additives commonly found in foods that are dangerous to our children’s overall health AND what to really look for, and supplement with, when eating packaged foods.  Let’s face it, in a world that moves as fast as we do today, sometimes we eat packaged foods.  Let’s make the best choices possible when doing so.  The following insight is written by author Deanna Minich, PhD, CN… Read the rest of this entry »

What we  parents ultimately desire for when we purchase packaged baby food is a chemical-free, hormone free, hormone disruptor-free, wholesome, nutritious meal to conveniently offer our babies.   All that, and of course we want our babies to eat the food too.  HappyBaby™ has a line of premium organic baby foods, meals and finger foods (such as melts and puffs) that have all passed “the test”.

Now don’t get me wrong, some baby food bought in a store can be delicious and down right nutritious, but not all of them.  And, wouldn’t it be great to know what you were getting into before you purchased some of these meals?  Well, today we have an extensive, yet quite simple layout of HappyBaby™ food’s organic line of baby food.  Tested by real babies with reviews and feedback from real mamas.  Not only that, but in this review we bring you  answers to questions that every parent should ask about baby food, packaged food and puffs. Read the rest of this entry »

When I had my baby bath time was fun, but was time consuming and sometimes could be a chore since I usually got into the full size tub with my little infant.  I thought having her close to me would make her feel safe, which I’m sure did somewhat, but look at this: Tummy Tub®, developed and recommended for more than 10 years by doctors, mid-wives, children’s nurses and psychologists, makes the experience of bath time safe, secure and comfortable for premature babies, infants, and very young children.

The tub itself is made from Polypropylene.  TummyTub® has the Rhineland Germany TÜV safety certificate additional tested by the STR.  With over 100,000 inspections and tests carried out on toys/baby products every year, TÜV Rheinland is one of the world’s leading toy inspection agencies.  The tests carried out include chemical, as well as physical inspections. And, the entire production and supply chain can also be tested with regard to sustainable use of resources, labor conditions and social standards.  This seal ensures that TUMMY TUB is PVC-free, BPA-free, lead free and phthalate free!

Our mom testers enjoyed the experience of bathing their babies with this safe alternative tub and we are proud to announce that Tummy Tub has just been awarded our very prestigious EXCELLENT AWARD!  Read on to find out why we highly recommend this tub and think it is a perfect baby shower gift too. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve recently come across a fabulous book that we faithfully refer to when we need holistic tips on how to heal common aliments and injuries such as sunburn, insect bites, bruises, diaper rashes and so much more. The remedies offered are natural and effective, coming from foods, herbs  & essential oils.

We highly recommend owning this book, GENTLE HEALING FOR BABY AND CHILD, by Master Herbalist Andrea Candee. Also after a doctors visit it’s good to get a second holistic opinion from ‘Gentle Healing’.  It’s a must have book for parents who chose a gentle way of healing.

This post today is written by author of GENTLE HEALING FOR BABY AND CHILD, Andrea Candee and reposted with permissions.  We love the infused approach of both conventional and holistic practices being offered here to help treat Lyme Disease.  This article additionally informs parents on the importance of probiotic health for our babies and children.

Read the rest of this entry »

Most adults have painful childhood memories about having splinters removed and, as parents, dread the day they have to remove one from their own child.  Sterilized needles and holding the screaming child down is a thing of the past…grab a banana instead!  School will soon be out for the summer but that doesn’t mean illness and injuries are on hiatus.  Sunburn, poison ivy, colds, diarrhea, rashes, insect bites, splinters, cuts and bruises can all put a damper on precious family moments.

When your children are sick or injured, you want them to feel better – fast! Although in some cases there is no substitute for traditional medical care, prescription drugs are not always the best answer. In a new book by Master Herbalist Andrea Candee, Gentle Healing for Baby and Child (Simon & Schuster), Candee, also a mother of two, shares more than 30 years’ experience using natural remedies for wellness. Dubbed the “natural Dr. Spock”, and written as a parent’s guide to child-friendly herbs and other natural remedies, gentle and easy holistic therapies are given for common childhood ailments and injuries. Read the rest of this entry »

First of all, CONGRATULATIONS, you are about to have a baby!  Now is the perfect time to browse through our topic categories on the left side bar (0-1 year) to learn as much as possible about helping to create a safe and non-toxic environment for your infant.

It is impossible to avoid all toxins that surround our children every day, but you can make a huge difference by being an informed and conscious shopper. “Green” doesn’t need to be expensive, and you can also find plenty of great safe alternative deals used (the quality products usually last way longer than the cheap stuff). I must say, we spent a little bit more on certain baby items and I am glad we did, they are a few years old now, and look like new. We’ll use them for our second child and when he outgrows them we’ll pass them on to other expecting parents to keep them out of landfills.

Although I see myself as a very conscious/informed shopper I realized that after doing Safbaby.com for almost 3 years, I didn’t know 2/3 of what I know today. Also, a lot of product labels are very misleading and can even fool parents who are looking for safe and non-toxic alternatives.  Obviously products are not labeled with “contains toxic fire retardants” or “parabens can harm your child”, so the more you know the better choices you’ll make.

Before I get to the Baby Shower Essential list, I want to share some invaluable tips with you for putting together your baby shower list: Read the rest of this entry »

We live on an island, so it’s no surprise that it is VERY important to me that my child knows how to swim.  Regardless of where we live, having the freedom to enjoy water and be SAFE around it is something that every parent wishes for their children.  True?

So, when we heard of Schlori Swim Cushions, a 100% pure cotton “floaty” recommended by Germany’s foremost swimming schools we were interested.  Most swim floaties here in the USA are made of PVC.  Yuck!  Knowing that  “phthalates leach from PVC toys like water from a wet sponge,” doesn’t make the typical arm floaties so appealing.  Also, this product uses Oeko-Tex certified fabric, so no nasty formaldehydes or other harmful substances in this cotton.

Not only that, but arm swimmies, life vests and tubes are truly more of a crutch than a tool for learning how to swim properly.  As opposed to offering a false sense of security in the pool or ocean, Schlori’s PVC-Free swim cushions place the body into a natural position for swimming while giving the greatest possible freedom of movement.  This makes the practicing of the unhindered swimming motion possible, and fun!  Today we are happily reposting to announce Schlori Swim Cushions earned our prestigious ‘Mom Approved – Child Tested’ Excellent Seal of Approval Award! Read the rest of this entry »

Have you heard of the new  international cell phone study  that came out Tuesday?

The 10 year  study  by WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) was done to find out if there’s a link between cell phones and cancer. The results that frequent cell phone use did not lead to an increased risk of either meningioma, a common but typically benign form of cancer, or glioma, a rare but more dangerous type of brain cancer, are inconclusive.

Unfortunately this study did not look into the effects of cell phone use on children. Children, as we mention in our articles “Does Wifi And Cell Phone Exposure Damage Our Children’s Brains/Reproductive Organs?“, “Keep Cell Phones Away From Your Children” and The Impact of Electrosmog On Our Children” are certainly much more vulnerable to the radiation, since they’ve been exposed to cell phone/wifi at a much earlier age than our parents and our generation.

Here is why we think there are flaws in the  study: Read the rest of this entry »

Have you wondered if you should cloth diaper your baby? Are you afraid that it’s going to be too much work and too messy?  There are so many different kinds of cloth diapers on the market today and lots of great accessories to make cloth diapering at home and on the go a breeze.  But, is it still the best option for you and your family?

I remember when my little one was an infant, my first attempts at using cloth diapers were a total failure.  It kept me from going cloth for another year, and once I got it down I couldn’t believe I had failed so miserably the first tries.  This is a great read for any new mom, or for any mom with a little one in diapers.

We ask cloth diaper expert and store owner of Wild Flower Diapers to answer 10 most frequently asked questions about cloth diapering. Read the rest of this entry »

Nap mats are designed to keep our precious children cozy during quiet nap times in day care, preschool and kindergarten.  They are not suppose to be a toxic breathing space that may affect the long term health of their brain, nervous system, respiratory systems and (oh yeah) endocrine systems.

When I started looking for a safe nap mat for my little one for preschool I thought I must be caught up in a horrible nightmare.   Almost all sleep mats are  made of PVC/vinyl and fire retardant chemical soaked foams!  Oh my goodness, I wouldn’t want my child playing with a vinyl toy let alone sleeping for hours on a PVC mat!

But now I can rest assured that my little angel will be taking naps at school that DO benefit her brain!   We are super happy to tell you about a chemical-free, organic cotton and hemp sleep mat that we found on Etsy and is made by hand in Ottawa, Canada.  Now we can sleep tight at night knowing that this safe alternative sleep mat is available for our little dreamers. Read the rest of this entry »