Based on the analysis of microplastic particle release in the lab,  a newborn baby being bottle fed would be exposed to 430 000 particles in their first day of life

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Guarding Your Baby’s Gut: The Alarming Reality of Microplastics in Bottles

Based on the analysis of microplastic particle release in the lab, a newborn baby being bottle fed would be exposed to 430 000 particles in their first day of life

We live in a plastic world….

And plastics are FOREVER chemicals : the bits get smaller but they never really disappear, they just become too small for us to see with the naked eye.

These tiny bits (microplastics) are ubiquitous.

Unveiling the Plastic Problem

They’re popping up in the food and water we drink.  Studies have documented them in salt, sea food and bottled water.

Officially………authorities don’t think there is a need to panic.

The actual number of particles the average adult human is being exposed to is small. Current estimates put it around  600 particles/day. The exact number will depend on your life situation.  Living in an urban environment eating processed foods will put you at the top end of the scale.

No worries….. they are pooped out.  Well, mostly.

Tiny Trouble

There are studies reporting microplastic sightings in blood from regular blood donors.  But it’s a mission to find them.

You’re not pumping PLASTIC.  Yet !

Microplastics are probably not enhancing your health, but at the same time, they’re probably not causing a significant health problem.

They’re neutral.

At the doses commonly encountered, lab studies suggest there is very little evidence they are a BIG PROBLEM.

Plastic Peril

Of course, at high doses the story changes.  Zebra fish can suffer intestinal damage and mice experience gut dysbiosis i.e. changes in their gut flora.

It’s a case of the dose makes the poison.

Plastic Generation Alert

So what would happen if instead of being exposed to 600 particles/day, you’re exposed to approx. 1 and a half million ?

Every day.

Day in and day out.

Add to this, you’ve got an immature digestive tract, because you’re a newbie at digesting food.  Your gut is good at handling nutrient packed liquids, but it hasn’t got a clue how to handle solids, let alone plastics.

Could those millions of microplastics potentially be A PROBLEM ?

Small Particles, Big Concerns

I’m willing to take a bet, you’re nodding your head.  This sounds like an “accident” waiting to happen.  Believe it or not, this is what is happening to the vast majority of the world’s babies. This is what a team of researchers based in Ireland uncovered when they a little digging.

Below is a graphic of their back of the envelope calculations, estimating daily microparticle exposures of 12 month infants around the world.

The world map of the daily exposure of 12-month-old infants to  microplastics due to the use of  plastic baby bottles.  © 2020, Dunzhu Li et al

How could this be ?

Lurking in Your Baby’s Bottle

Well modern babies are often fed using PLASTIC BOTTLES.   The plastic most often used is polypropylene.   Sometimes the bottles are filled with infant formula, sometimes the bottle are filled with freshly pumped breast milk.  It really doesn’t matter what is IN THE BOTTLE….

It’s THE BOTTLE that is the problem.

Baby bottles head for “the lab”

Our team bought 10 brand new plastic baby bottles, from different manufacturers/suppliers and brought them back to the lab.

Then they prepared them for a feed….

Carefully following the guidelines outlined by the WHO for formula preparation.

For the record, they went out of their way to make sure, the only plastics being detected originated from the plastic baby bottle set up, throughout the experiment the team wore nitrile gloves & hair nets and  all the ancillary equipment was glass.

Preparing the plastic baby bottles

1. The plastic baby bottles were soaked in 95°C water for 5 minutes to cleanse and sterilize them.
2. Next they were air dried and 70°C was poured in them, to constitute “the formula”.
3. To finish the preparations, they were given a good 60 second shake to facilitate the formula mixing process.

Once it the contents of the plastic baby bottle had cooled, it was then fed to a “baby”.  In this case “baby” was a gold-coated filter with a pore size of 0.8 um.   The number, size and shape of the microparticles released by the plastic baby bottle  was determined using Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy.

The Alarming Reality of Microplastics in Bottles

All the products had microparticles.

Quantity of microplastic particles released from plastic baby bottles. Each “box” represents one of the 10 plastic baby bottles sampled. © 2020 Dunzhu Li et al.

In terms of size, they  were are all tiny i.e. in the micro meter range.  To put their size in perspective, the size of an E.coli, this is a  bacteria which is found in the gut, is 1-2 um.

The size distribution of microparticles released from bottles. © 2020 Dunzhu Li et al

NOTE : Because of the size of the filter they were using, the team could only detect particles 0.8 um or bigger.  It is very likely that there would have been many particles smaller than this, these particles are referred to as nanoparticles rather than microplastics.

What they get up to is anyone’s guess.

If you’re curious about what they looked like,  here are some shots of the bigger and smaller particles, as viewed by AFM microscope.

Topographic maps of microparticles released from bottles. © 2020 Dunzhu Li et al

Exploring the Impact of Microplastics

Research suggests the particle size influences what happens to the particles inside the body.  For the record, generally speaking the smaller a particle is, the more toxic it is likely to be.

1 um particles have been shown to cause intestinal damage in zebra fish.

And this research suggests there is no shortage of these in infants being bottle fed.   Eish !

Plastic Baby bottles IN SERVICE

These are the results for a once off use of a brand new baby bottle.  But that’s not how baby bottles get used.

They’re used for multiple feeds every day.

When the team simulated “normal” bottle use, by sterilizing once a day and preparing formula 5 times per day, it was clear, the level of microparticle release oscillated.

The quantity of microparticles released over a 21-day testing period. Each colour reflects a different bottle. © 2020 Dunzhu Li et al

What are the implications of this ?

The short answer no one really knows.  But all these microplastic particles doing the rounds in a very delicate still developing gut, can’t be a good thing ?

Is this the reason so many kids have health issues ?

Quantifying the exposure

The team calculated that a newborn baby being bottle fed would be exposed to 430 000 particles in his/her first day on the planet.  Ouch.

Doesn’t that just freak you out ?

And it’s just the beginning, the microplastic count climbs  from there.  In Western countries, where breast feeding rates are low and the use of breast pumps is common,  it peaks around the 5-6 month mark, then drops off a little when baby is weaned.

The infants’ microparticle exposure during the first 12 months in USA, UK and China © 2020 Dunzhu Li et al

The pattern in less developed countries is a little bit different.

Guarding Your Baby’s Gut

Fortunately this is something that can be managed.

Don’t use plastic baby bottles.

It is still possible to buy glass, granted they are more expensive.  If you’re worried about breakages and money is no object, stainless steel baby bottles are also an option.  As a rule these bottles will last longer and the microplastic deluge WON’T HAPPEN, so you will be helping your little one’s gut come on line with minimum interference.

A gift that has the potential to have lifetime benefits.

Further reading

Want to discover more ways to create BETTER BODY CHEMISTRY ?