Over the weekend, someone sent my husband a link to a video called “The Girl Who Silenced the World” from 1992 where a 12 year old girl named Severn Suzuki addresses the UN’s Earth Summit Meeting in Rio de Janeiro. Severn essentially gives the panel and every living adult a well-articulated lashing for leaving the planet in this state for her generation to contend with. Had the Internet been in full force then, this video would have flown around like wildfire. I’d like to help spread it around now. Everyone on this planet should watch it-it is more relevant now than ever.

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Two months before I gave birth to my baby girl I did some research on which diapers would have the least amount of environmental impact. Traditional, “non-eco” disposables were never even an option…I was interested only in comparing “eco” choices.

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Halloween, like many other holidays, is a love-hate day for me. I love the tradition, the fun of dressing up as someone or something completely different from myself, the excitement of walking the streets in the dark, leaves blowing, trying to figure out who is hiding under each costume, and, of course, gorging on piles of candy just before bedtime (of course I only did that as a kid). As I’ve become a concerned “greenie” mother, however, I am growing to hate holidays that fuel the consumption of toxic materials and goodies that ain’t so good for the planet or our bodies.

That said, I am the mother of a 15 month old girl and, in an effort to not be a complete curmudgeon, I thought I would do some research to find eco-acceptable costumes and planet- and body-better goodies. Here are a few good finds:

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Last week, I participated in a community-based conversation about vaccinations at our local library that included two of our medical center’s nursing staff and a bunch of smart, well-researched, concerned moms. Though I’ve written two previous posts about vaccinations, I was compelled to write yet another to share the conclusion I and others came to at the end of this community discussion.

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I was hugely disappointed to hear last month that Sigg Water Bottles produced before August 2008 were made with a liner that includes bad, bad, bad BPA. Many people, including me, bought Sigg bottles to replace other BPA/nasty chemical leaching bottles in our possession.

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I’m dying to write a light-hearted post, but I keep coming across new news on the potential risks involved with Gardisil, the teen vaccine intended to stave off cervical cancer, and the swine flu vaccine and I feel that I must continue to get the word out on vaccines. The more I read and listen, the more suspicious I am becoming that our national vaccination policy is a well-meaning government program that, like so many others, is caught up in nasty politics and big business.

As a side note, it is difficult to write about these matters without sounding alarmist. My goal here is to encourage parents to educate themselves about vaccines. Like any medical issue, citizens need to take responsibility for their own health. It is too easy to just do what the doctor says. See my last post about vaccinating baby for more resources that can help educate you about the potential hazards of vaccinations.

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A flurry of emails has been flying around the web warning that cell phone use could be risky business for you and, if you have one, your baby. As an avid multitasker who has mastered talking on the cell phone while doing ten other things, baby in hand, I decided to do a little research to see, well, what the research says.

After poking around on this issue, I can tell you that I’m worried. I’ve passed a few of the articles I’ve found to my husband and he’s so worried that he is planning to deactivate our wireless router and hard-wire both of our computers this week-and he’s constantly turning my Blackberry off. This causes a bit of bickering given how dependent I’ve become on that damn little device. It’s the number I use for my consulting business, I use it for email and texting when I un-tether myself from my computer, and, like most people, my friends and family try me there first. Now, friends think I’ve forgotten them and clients think I’m a flake because I don’t answer their calls and don’t return messages for days until I’ve discovered them (my mommy brain can’t seem to remember to check messages if my phone isn’t on to tell me that I have them). The bickering stops as soon as my husband says “Would you rather scramble little Emerson’s brain?”

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Does every mom struggle as much as I do with signing up to have the doctor stick their baby with a needle full of potentially harmful ingredients that makes baby scream with teary eyes that say “why are you doing this to me” followed by two days of fever?

OK, maybe I’m a wimp, but, when I read books like Dr. Sears’s The Vaccine Book and articles like “Vaccine Debate” in Mothering Magazine this month, I feel rather vindicated for being very cautious about vaccinating my little one year old girl, Emerson.

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I had the pleasure of seeing Alec Loorz speak and show his film at the Telluride Mountain Film festival, a documentary film festival chock-full of disturbing and inspiring content from around the globe. Alec is fourteen and is quickly becoming the Al Gore of his age group. In fact, he is now the youngest trained presenter for Al Gore’s The Climate Project.

Alec, a resident of Ventura, CA, founded Kids vs Global Warming when he was 12 years old after watching Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth“.  Since then, Alec has spear-headed multiple global warming education projects around Ventura County and inspired hundreds of other kids to do the same in their communities across the nation. One project, cleverly named S.L.A.P. (Sea Level Awareness Project), educates people on what future sea levels will look like in coastal communities due to global warming. To do that, Alec and a team of volunteers posted signs throughout Ventura beach and city to show people what areas would be under water by when. S.L.A.P. is now expanding to coastal areas in Washington DC, NY, and throughout CA.

Alec also authored the “Declaration of Independence from Fossil Fuels“, available for people of all ages to sign on the website.

Most impressive is Alec’s film “iMatter“, an eye opening, entertaining, and informative short built to inspire youth to action-and his Gore-like (for kids) presentation.  Alec got a standing ovation from the audience at Telluride Mountain Film. Watching this confident, optimistic 14-year-old kid fire up a room of 600 people with his talk and film gave me hope that the next generation might actually have a chance at reversing some of the damage ours has done. Alec is now The Climate Project’s youngest trained presenter.

Alec, keep up the good work. Can I ask your parents a few questions on how they raised you?

These examples make me wonder about all vaccines, but particularly the  H1N1 vaccine.  I can’t help but put this one in my “suspicious” category as well, even though it hasn’t been around very long. Everything I read about this one smells like someone making money. The southern hemisphere has already gone through flu season and swine flu ran its course. So far the swine flu is no more deadly than the regular old flu that comes through year after year. The shot is full of controversial ingredients, including mercury or squalene as the adjuvant (squalene is the ingredient in the soldier-mandated anthrax vaccine from the first Gulf War and the cause of Gulf War Syndrome). The H1N1 vaccine is another fast-tracked vaccine which means it has undergone very few safety studies. They are finding that 2-4 shots must be given to ensure effectiveness. That can mean up to 48mcg of mercury, more than 3 times the “safe” amount for an adult that weighs 125lbs (if the shot you get uses Mercury as the adjuvant). Lastly, I think it’s interesting that one of the U.S.’s most famous doctor’s wife and children will not be getting the H1N1 vaccine. Check out this clip of Dr. Oz on CNN (sounds like his wife wears the pants in their family):

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A nurse at our community meeting said it best: “Probably the best thing you can do this flu season is make sure you are prepared to hunker down at home for 2-4 weeks if the swine flu hits your home town hard. That means having enough food, Tylenol, and anything else you need so that you don’t have to leave the house.” Personally, I’m more worried about the long-term effects of the vaccine than I am getting the virus. We plan to be prepared  to stay home vs risking putting a highly controversial vaccine into our or our baby’s bodies.

Here’s the problem with “suspicious” vaccines: mindful, research-oriented parents like me are beginning to distrust the entire vaccination industry and government recommendations because of the controversy surrounding vaccines that are pushed by the CDC yet have been proven ineffective (Gardisil, chickenpox), are inappropriate (Hep B), where the disease can be prevented by less risky means (Gardisil), or where the risks from getting the vaccine could be worse than getting the disease itself (all vaccines mentioned above).  Many of us parents have become paralyzed, only partially vaccinating or not vaccinating our kids at all.

Unfortunately, there are no clear answers, and, given the dynamics of big business and government pockets, it is hard to know who to trust. Dr. Mercola recently wrote an article pleading with parents to not give their children the H1N1 vaccine due its potential dangers and the unwarranted fear of the flu itself. In it, he mentions the size of government contracts for H1N1 producers. I know someone needs to produce (necessary) vaccines and they should be paid for it, but, at what point, does greed come into play?

One of the main reasons I am generally tentative about vaccinations is that, in addition to my fears of short-term severe reactions, I am increasingly more concerned about the long-term effects of vaccines on our health, given the rise of unexplained autoimmune disease, autism, and neurological disorders that seem to have risen in parallel with the number of vaccinations we are administering to our children. Frankly, given these concerns plus the CDC push of seemingly unnecessary vaccines, I am having a hard time signing up to give my daughter any vaccines.  Yet I and many other mothers I talk to are concerned that, perhaps, some vaccines warrant being given. We wonder how stupid we will feel if our child contracts one of the actually deadly diseases because we chose not to vaccinate for it. We are on our own, as usual, taking ours and our children’s health into our own hands.

As of yesterday, I am the mother of a happy, healthy one year old girl named Emerson. In my year of motherhood, I have figured out a few things including what products I absolutely love and want every other mommy to have. We haven’t had to buy much thanks to our generous community of hand-me-downers. When we do buy, we do as much research as possible on function, toxins, and quality (so that we can hand them down someday). The following products are items that meet some eco criteria. All have made life easier, look great in our small space, or are loved by Emerson.

1. Born Free glass bottles

My husband and I are completely freaked out by plastic-even BPA-free plastic, particularly when heating it. We used only Born Free glass bottles for those middle-of-the-night expressed milk daddy feedings (thank goodness we’re not up at night anymore). We heated them in the First Years bottle warmer or in a pan of hot water (we’re freaked out by microwaves too) and had no issues with cracking. As an avid breast feeder, Emerson loved the stern sucking required from the flow-controlled nipple too.

2. The Svan high chair

This product is expensive ($250), but well worth the price given its look, quality, functionality, and long life. The Svan’s flexible design works as baby’s highchair and continuously morphs to fit “baby” through toddlerhood, childhood, and teenage hood. We live in a small space so it is nice to have a compact, nice looking piece of furniture in our kitchen and it’s easy to clean to boot.

3. Sophie the Giraffe

The word is out that Sophie the Giraffe is one of the most loved squeaky, fun teething toys ever. This classic French toy, made in the Alps with non-toxic materials is a happy distraction from shoes, electrical cords, and everything else nasty that baby tends to chew on when teething.

4. Natursutton All-Natural Rubber Orthodontic Pacifier

Luckily Emerson found her thumb early, but every now and then she loved to suck or chew on a pacifier. Again, due to our fears of toxic plastics, phalates, and BPA-full products, we found these fantastic natural rubber pacifiers, and Emerson loved them!

5. The Orbitz toddler car seat and stroller combination

We were given a handed down infant car seat. Given that our baby is huge, and now one year old, we started researching toddler car seat options. The first place we went is healthycar.org to see what the lowest toxin car seats were (toxic off-gassing in a small car compartment is a big problem). The Orbitz was one of two seats with a green rating, meaning it is made with the lowest amount of toxins. Next, we looked at a variety of consumer product ratings around the web and the Orbitz was a five star product from a user perspective on every site. In addition to being comfortable, convertible (it can go backward or forward and lasts up to 50lbs), it is the only toddler car seat I’ve found that fits to a stroller. We’ve always worn Emerson in the Bjorn or Ergo, but the girl is getting heavy and having an easy car seat stroller combo started to make sense. This is another pricey product, but, because of its many qualities, we’re going for it (well, OK. Grammy’s getting it for Emerson’s first birthday).

As a conscious consumer, I am thrilled to find more and more products that combine great design, quality, and eco-characteristics. I’d love to hear from readers what their favorite products are too.

These examples make me wonder about all vaccines, but particularly the  H1N1 vaccine.  I can’t help but put this one in my “suspicious” category as well, even though it hasn’t been around very long. Everything I read about this one smells like someone making money. The southern hemisphere has already gone through flu season and swine flu ran its course. So far the swine flu is no more deadly than the regular old flu that comes through year after year. The shot is full of controversial ingredients, including mercury or squalene as the adjuvant (squalene is the ingredient in the soldier-mandated anthrax vaccine from the first Gulf War and the cause of Gulf War Syndrome). The H1N1 vaccine is another fast-tracked vaccine which means it has undergone very few safety studies. They are finding that 2-4 shots must be given to ensure effectiveness. That can mean up to 48mcg of mercury, more than 3 times the “safe” amount for an adult that weighs 125lbs (if the shot you get uses Mercury as the adjuvant). Lastly, I think it’s interesting that one of the U.S.’s most famous doctor’s wife and children will not be getting the H1N1 vaccine. Check out this clip of Dr. Oz on CNN (sounds like his wife wears the pants in their family):

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post..

A nurse at our community meeting said it best: “Probably the best thing you can do this flu season is make sure you are prepared to hunker down at home for 2-4 weeks if the swine flu hits your home town hard. That means having enough food, Tylenol, and anything else you need so that you don’t have to leave the house.” Personally, I’m more worried about the long-term effects of the vaccine than I am getting the virus. We plan to be prepared  to stay home vs risking putting a highly controversial vaccine into our or our baby’s bodies.

Here’s the problem with “suspicious” vaccines: mindful, research-oriented parents like me are beginning to distrust the entire vaccination industry and government recommendations because of the controversy surrounding vaccines that are pushed by the CDC yet have been proven ineffective (Gardisil, chickenpox), are inappropriate (Hep B), where the disease can be prevented by less risky means (Gardisil), or where the risks from getting the vaccine could be worse than getting the disease itself (all vaccines mentioned above).  Many of us parents have become paralyzed, only partially vaccinating or not vaccinating our kids at all.

Unfortunately, there are no clear answers, and, given the dynamics of big business and government pockets, it is hard to know who to trust. Dr. Mercola recently wrote an article pleading with parents to not give their children the H1N1 vaccine due its potential dangers and the unwarranted fear of the flu itself. In it, he mentions the size of government contracts for H1N1 producers. I know someone needs to produce (necessary) vaccines and they should be paid for it, but, at what point, does greed come into play?

One of the main reasons I am generally tentative about vaccinations is that, in addition to my fears of short-term severe reactions, I am increasingly more concerned about the long-term effects of vaccines on our health, given the rise of unexplained autoimmune disease, autism, and neurological disorders that seem to have risen in parallel with the number of vaccinations we are administering to our children. Frankly, given these concerns plus the CDC push of seemingly unnecessary vaccines, I am having a hard time signing up to give my daughter any vaccines.  Yet I and many other mothers I talk to are concerned that, perhaps, some vaccines warrant being given. We wonder how stupid we will feel if our child contracts one of the actually deadly diseases because we chose not to vaccinate for it. We are on our own, as usual, taking ours and our children’s health into our own hands.

A new site called What’s On My Food just launched this week. It is a godsend for moms everywhere who are concerned about pesticides in our and our babies’ food, not to mention water systems and the air. Did you know that the average American child gets five plus servings of pesticides in their food and water daily? Did you know that Atrazine, a potent endocrine disrupter banned in Europe, is found in 71% of US drinking water? What’s On My Food is full of horrific little tidbits like these and provides easy-to-grok visual breakdowns of pesticides in common foods.

Pesticides are a big problem for little bodies.

Babies and children have high metabolisms and they eat and drink significantly more, in relation to body weight, than adults, all of which further concentrate pesticide deposits in their tissues and still-developing internal organs. Pesticides and other pollutants can interfere with proper sexual differentiation; they can also cause other birth defects and multigenerational health problems such as allergies, immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity, and cancer in the individual, that individual’s offspring, and subsequent generations.

So what can you do?

1. Put your money where your mouth is (buy organic)

Yes, it can be more expensive. But think of all the purchasing decisions we make in a day or year. Think of all the silly things you’ve spent money on. In my opinion, buying organic is one of the most important ways we can vote with our wallets. Buying organic from your local farmer’s market is even better.

2. Grow your own veggies

Gardening has come a long way in the last decade. It has become much simpler, and even chic, to grow what you put on your table. Plus, gardening gives kids first-hand knowledge of where their food comes from. Check out Sustainable Urban Gardens for tips and ideas for how to do it yourself.

3. Use Environmental Working Group’s shopping guide (pdf or super cool iPod app)

Environmental Working Group has been around since 1993 and specializes in providing useful resources (like Skin Deep and the Shoppers’ Guide to Pesticides in Produce) to consumers while simultaneously pushing for national policy change. The shopping guide provides a list of “The Dirty Dozen”, (must buy organic) and “The Clean 15″ (foods that are not as critical to buy organic because they absorb less pesticides).

4. Read Marion Nestle’s What to Eat

Nestle walks readers through every supermarket section–produce, meat, fish, dairy, packaged foods, bottled waters, and more–decoding labels and clarifying nutritional and other claims (in supermarket-speak, for example, “fresh” means most likely to spoil first, not recently picked or prepared), and in so doing explores issues like the effects of food production on our environment, the way pricing works, and additives and their effect on nutrition. It is a great, often funny read, and a good way to educate yourself on something we ingest multiple times a day.

As citizens and consumers, our actions are critical, particularly with something as important and pervasive as food.

Photo courtesy of Tarlyn via Flickr under Creative Commons license.

These examples make me wonder about all vaccines, but particularly the  H1N1 vaccine.  I can’t help but put this one in my “suspicious” category as well, even though it hasn’t been around very long. Everything I read about this one smells like someone making money. The southern hemisphere has already gone through flu season and swine flu ran its course. So far the swine flu is no more deadly than the regular old flu that comes through year after year. The shot is full of controversial ingredients, including mercury or squalene as the adjuvant (squalene is the ingredient in the soldier-mandated anthrax vaccine from the first Gulf War and the cause of Gulf War Syndrome). The H1N1 vaccine is another fast-tracked vaccine which means it has undergone very few safety studies. They are finding that 2-4 shots must be given to ensure effectiveness. That can mean up to 48mcg of mercury, more than 3 times the “safe” amount for an adult that weighs 125lbs (if the shot you get uses Mercury as the adjuvant). Lastly, I think it’s interesting that one of the U.S.’s most famous doctor’s wife and children will not be getting the H1N1 vaccine. Check out this clip of Dr. Oz on CNN (sounds like his wife wears the pants in their family):

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post..

A nurse at our community meeting said it best: “Probably the best thing you can do this flu season is make sure you are prepared to hunker down at home for 2-4 weeks if the swine flu hits your home town hard. That means having enough food, Tylenol, and anything else you need so that you don’t have to leave the house.” Personally, I’m more worried about the long-term effects of the vaccine than I am getting the virus. We plan to be prepared  to stay home vs risking putting a highly controversial vaccine into our or our baby’s bodies.

Here’s the problem with “suspicious” vaccines: mindful, research-oriented parents like me are beginning to distrust the entire vaccination industry and government recommendations because of the controversy surrounding vaccines that are pushed by the CDC yet have been proven ineffective (Gardisil, chickenpox), are inappropriate (Hep B), where the disease can be prevented by less risky means (Gardisil), or where the risks from getting the vaccine could be worse than getting the disease itself (all vaccines mentioned above).  Many of us parents have become paralyzed, only partially vaccinating or not vaccinating our kids at all.

Unfortunately, there are no clear answers, and, given the dynamics of big business and government pockets, it is hard to know who to trust. Dr. Mercola recently wrote an article pleading with parents to not give their children the H1N1 vaccine due its potential dangers and the unwarranted fear of the flu itself. In it, he mentions the size of government contracts for H1N1 producers. I know someone needs to produce (necessary) vaccines and they should be paid for it, but, at what point, does greed come into play?

One of the main reasons I am generally tentative about vaccinations is that, in addition to my fears of short-term severe reactions, I am increasingly more concerned about the long-term effects of vaccines on our health, given the rise of unexplained autoimmune disease, autism, and neurological disorders that seem to have risen in parallel with the number of vaccinations we are administering to our children. Frankly, given these concerns plus the CDC push of seemingly unnecessary vaccines, I am having a hard time signing up to give my daughter any vaccines.  Yet I and many other mothers I talk to are concerned that, perhaps, some vaccines warrant being given. We wonder how stupid we will feel if our child contracts one of the actually deadly diseases because we chose not to vaccinate for it. We are on our own, as usual, taking ours and our children’s health into our own hands.

Exhausted Mom by Halfmoon Jewelry, Flickr, under a Creative Commons license

I have an eleven month old little girl named Emerson who, in spite of the nurses at the hospital saying “you’ve got a sleeper”, turned out to not be much of a sleeper.  There are worse stories, but mine is a good example of mixing mom’s intuition, dad’s motivation, and a great deal of research to figure out the best path to sanity.

Our Story

Month 1

Emerson started as a fairly typical baby. She slept for two hours at a time around the clock, waking only to latch on for her fill. I co-slept with her in our bed and my husband slept in an extra room so that he could get enough sleep to deal with life (don’t worry, we slipped nookie in here and there). She almost never cried the entire first month of her life. I thought the situation was quite blissful, particularly because I took the age old advice of “sleep when your baby sleeps” to heart. Clearly something in the mommy brain prepares us for waking up to feed a baby every two hours…but only up to a point.

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Got a restless little sleeper? A baby who just seems uncomfortable most of the time? I’m no doctor but I’m a mom who survived a baby with colic and reflux. Yup, sleepless nights for what seemed like an eternity, feeling helpless looking at my baby girl writhing around in pain/discomfort, teetering on the edge of insanity as I started back to work.

If only someone had told me…

After four months of Emerson being up every 1-2 hours at night, and taking short, restless naps, and not sleeping comfortably anywhere—with me, in a moses basket, in her crib—I was at the end of my rope. Our pediatrician’s “She’s just not a good sleeper” response was not enough for me—clearly something was wrong. She was in pain! I googled “infant restless sleep” and bought every sleep book in existence to find an answer. I finally found it in Dr Sears’s The Baby Sleep Book.

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Editor’s Note: Allison Wolff is the Founder of Vibrant Planet, a company that provides strategy and communications for companies and nonprofits focused on social and environmental innovation. She was also lead strategist and writer at Stone Yamashita Partners and former Director of Marketing for Netflix. This is her first contribution to GO Media.

I am the mother of a 9 month old little girl named Emerson. I struggled for years—almost to the point of having the age window close on me—with the question of whether or not to have a kid because of planet’s likely dismal future. Emerson is a “we didn’t try not to get pregnant” baby and, because she dropped into my womb with only one unprotected “oops”, I tell myself that she was fated to be here given all the trials and tribulations my other 40 year old friends have gone through to have children. A friend who is a climate scientist/astrologist/string theorist convinced me that she is likely one of the planet saving souls who has been waiting to arrive on Earth.

Since I found out I was pregnant, I have struggled deeply with what kind of mom I ideally want to be versus what is realistic given a number of difficult, well…realities. I grapple with everything from sleep and food introduction philosophies to vaccinations and what products to buy or accept from friends as gifts (i.e. I have been very particular about what I allow to enter my daughter’s mouth). I can’t wait until I have to start thinking about discipline and potty training.

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