My wife reads BabyCenter forums quite a bit, and coincidentally to my posting about BornFree Glass Baby Bottles, there is a discussion about the “plastic scare”. Although I covered some of the facts in my article about Bisphenol-A and Phthalates, I have some common sense, give you my 2-cents thoughts on the subject.

One argument I keep seeing is: “if it was dangerous, wouldn’t they recall it or ban it?”
Like they did with cigarettes right? It is a false assumption that the government will act immediately, or that companies will protect you. They won’t. The government is a slow, sloth of a machine, that takes forever to change, and even longer to decide on things smaller than war. Companies are out to make a profit. Of course, if they discovered that using a plastic bottle made your baby light on fire, they would recall and fix the problem. But it doesn’t do something that obvious. Any inkling of a question of the legitimacy of an concerns, merely open the door for the company to ignore the problem by saying “we will wait till a conclusive study is completed”.

Another is bold statement that “It’s all a ploy to get you to buy more expensive bottles.”
Wow. A ploy by who? The government agencies who are investigating it? The health associations who have questioned it? Thats absurd. How would it benefit the government or health association by encouraging you to buy a more expensive glass bottle? There is no legitimate answer, baring a totally insane, tin-foil-hat answer.

Cost.
The BornFree bottles cost 3 times what the Dr Browns bottles. So that is a legitimate concern, if cash is tight. But if you are well to do, you really have no excuse. Also, when your kid develops a health issue in the future, are you going to wonder if the whopping 3x savings was worth it? I do feel bad that the cost is that much more. However you do have other alternatives instead of glass. Anything made out of polypropelene(what your milk jug is made of) is theoretically fine. Gerber Clearview bottles are an example at a whopping $1 a bottle.

The evidence is inconclusive.
Technically yes, realistically no. Go read the studies. Bisphenol-A is a hormone disrupting chemical, specifically an estrogen receptor agonist, meaning, it makes your body think there is estrogen there, even when there isn’t. Just do some mental gymnastics on that one regarding a baby girl, or boy for that matter. They shouldn’t have much estrogen yet, so what does it stop or start growing. Is it beef hormones that are making our girls hit puberty earlier than ever, or is it plastic? The other offender is Phthalate. Phthalate metabolite concentration levels in urine seem to directly correlate to waste size and insulin resistance as well as kidney, liver and reproductive organ damage. Are they the actual cause of those problems, or just related to some other action of cause? Who cares, I like my liver and kidneys, and I want my daughter to like hers. Yes the evidence is not yet solid, I will grant that, but the jury is deliberating, and the bailiff is hinting that they are leaning towards guilty. So, why risk it? There is no reason to risk it, and there are plenty of options if glass is too pricey.

I understand, and even fully embrace the idea of not jumping on the bandwagon of every single chicken-little-the-sky-is-falling idea that comes along. But when it comes to health, and making the change doesn’t eliminate anything good, then why not. The example I use is eggs. Eggs are good then bad then good then bad and i think we are now back to good for you. Meh, so what, I never stopped eating them, because eggs were always somewhat good for you, even when they were bad. Plenty of nutrition regardless of the bad cholesterol. Plastic however can be removed from your food chain without much of an impact, and even less if all you remove are the “bad” plastics like polycarbonate. There is no positive aspect to plastic, related to food and drink, that cannot be replaced with an alternative material like glass or metal. Its the point of understanding the difference between a change that is easy, and change that is hard. Easy is no plastic with food or drink. Hard is no carbs in your diet.