There are concerns about baby bottles and plastic bottles in general. Some tests have shown that a chemical in plastic called chemical bisphenol A (BPA) can be leached from baby bottles when they are used repeatedly - especially if the plastic bottles is used over and over or the bottle is heated. US Newsreports that environmental health organizations are calling for a BPA ban.
"This is quite concerning. All 19 polycarbonate bottles [investigated in the study] leached BPA when heated. This is clearly showing that BPA is certainly leaching from popular and common consumer products," Judith Robinson, special projects director with the Environmental Health Fund, said at a Thursday teleconference. "We're calling for an immediate moratorium on the use of BPA in all baby bottles, as well as all food and beverage containers. It's not necessary, and we're calling for an end to it immediately."
The call for a ban coincides with publication of a new study, Baby's Toxic Bottle: Bisphenol A Leaching from Popular Brands of Baby Bottles, commissioned by the same group of organizations, showing that BPA leaches from popular brands of plastic baby bottles when the bottles are heated.
This study comes just days after another study found that exposing plastic bottles in general to boiling water can release BPA 55 times faster than normal.
There is concern in many quarters that BPA, an environmental estrogen, may pose some risk to development and reproduction, although it's unclear at what level that harm begins to occur.
Animal studies have shown the leached chemicals can even alter development. Matt Lauer talks with Dr. Leo Trasande of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in this video below (via Parent Dish). Some bottles are worse than others and Dr. Trasande says you need to avoid bottles with the numbers 3,6 and 7 on the bottom.
