The many reasons you should ditch plastic
When Vincenzo was first diagnosed I diligently researched the many ways to improve our home environment. I realized we were still using plastic toothbrushes, sippy cups, storing food in Tupperware, drinking out of plastic bottles daily, and much more. Heating food in plastic can cause harmful chemicals can make their way inside your food. The safer bet is to reheat your food on a stove, yes it's time-consuming but safer for you and your child. Drinking water out of plastic is just as harmful, especially when heated. Small changes may make a great improvement for your children. We use glass and stainless steel storage containers for anything we need to store food, snacks, etc. Our boys drink out of stainless steel cups and love that their drink is always cold. Instead of putting their snacks in zip lock bags, we use reusable stainless steel containers, which are also better for our environment all the way around. We switched our plastic toothbrushes to bamboo and you can find them anywhere online. Another option could be using glass cups however with my 3 boys I know stainless steel is the better option. I think once they are older we will switch to glass cups for them. Instead of using plastic PBA-free plates, we have glass or bamboo. For all of our leftovers, we use glass storage containers.
Young children are unfortunately at an increased risk of ingesting microplastics. The reason for this is due to consistently putting daily-use objects into their mouth, especially with children on the spectrum. Vinny used to suffer from PICA and constantly put everything in his mouth. Microplastics can cause digestive issues, and inflammation, disrupt nutrient absorption, and developmental delays in children. There is a group of chemicals called phthalates which are used to make plastics more flexible and are found in various products from shampoos to food packaging. Phthalates have already been associated with several disorders, including obesity, heart disease, reduced IQ, and birth defects. Microplastics are transmitted through ingestion and inhalation, which can then enter the bloodstream and possibly cross the blood-brain barrier, where they can exert neurotoxic effects on the child. Knowing this can affect our children and our health we have decided to eliminate all plastics in our household. I know making a lot of changes is very stressful when it comes to the healing journey so do the best you can with what you have and what works for your family.
I've attached an NIH link to a published article if you'd like to read more on the impact of microplastics and nano plastics on human health.
