Sunday, November 23, 2008

Hairspray and Pregnancy don't mix

I still got my hair done when I was pregnant and I don't think I cut back on hairspray, but I would have used less product had I read this first! I have to tell my hair dresser!

From ABC: Pregnant hairdressers may be exposing their unborn children to harmful chemicals that can lead to genital birth defects. A new study shows the sons of hairdressers and beauticians frequently exposed to hairspray were more than twice as likely to be born with hypospadias, in which the urinary opening appears on the underside of the penis.

Paul Elliott from Imperial College London, and colleagues, interviewed 471 mothers whose sons had been born with the defect and 490 mothers of children not born with the disorder, to try to find out which chemicals the mothers had been exposed to: including exhaust fumes, printing ink, hairspray, or glues.

While the other substances did not return statistically significant results, the use of hairspray appeared to have a big impact. Of the 74 women who reported regular exposure to hairspray at work during the first three months of pregnancy, 50 gave birth to sons with the genital defect.

I think most of us are pretty careful about being exposed to chemicals when we're pregnant. I use natural cleaning supplies without those strong smells and we don't have the lawn maintained. How about you?

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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2 comments:

Maria said...

I'm fairly green, so I don't use much product anyway. I clean mostly with green products or make my own. I watched what I ate and even switched toothpastes after I found out about the chemicals in some of those. My vice is that I get my hair highlighted, but I didn't do that much while pregnant either.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad I was one of the lucky ones then. I am a hairstylist, so I was exposed almost daily the entire 9 months of my pregnancy. I worked until 3 days before my son's birth. I colored my hair, and colored and permed hundreds of women in that time also. Maybe I am wrong, but I never could quite get the connection in hair products harming our babies. There obviously must be one though, since so many doctor's suggest not doing it.

 
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