It was not to be….

Our first peanut encounter was at the Beluga tank when the girls were watching the whales beside the tank. A little boy toddled up to our empty wagon and promptly dropped his peanut butter sandwich into it. I couldn’t believe it. What made it worse is that he then smeared the peanut butter all over the wagon while he tried to retrieve it. I politely asked the mother if it was indeed peanut butter and if she had any wipes to help me clean it. She grudgingly helped me.

Then, as we headed through the “tropical zone”, we ended up walking beside a family that had 4 kids all eating… you guessed it… peanut butter sandwiches. I could smell the peanut butter before I saw the sandwiches. It was pretty overwhelming for the senses in fact. I told my brother we needed to get away from this family as I watched their kids put their fingers all over the glass of every display tank and then lick their fingers and then touch the glass again.

It was shortly after this that Alicia’s reaction began. She wasn’t even touching the same glass. She was sitting in her wagon eating her lunch and suddenly said, “Mommy, my eyes hurt.” It was dark where we were but I could see her rubbing her eyes and they looked swollen. I told my brother we need to move it to where there was better light so I could see her. We ran to the main area where there was good light and indeed Alicia’s eyes were swelling. I pulled out our epi pack and promptly gave her a good dose of Benedryl. I also gave Madelyn some since she shares the same allergy though she was not complaining (she is not as severe).

I was shaking like a leaf. After seeing her first reaction, which I described in my last post about this, I was worried it was happening again. Fortunately, the Benedryl did the trick and there was no need for the epi pen. My guess is just being around that much peanut butter set her off. It took an hour for my heart rate come down. We left the aquarium.

I sobbed in the car to my brother after the kids all fell asleep in the back. I was devastated. My already small and scary world just became even smaller. We were just starting to get comfortable with living with this allergy and once again I don’t want to leave the house with the girls. How can I send them to school? How can we visit anyone’s house? Clearly Alicia is very sensitive.

My question is whether it is reasonable to request that the Vancouver Aquarium, and places like it, consider being a peanut free zone? I know that a number of schools and churches have adopted such policies. This is, after all, a matter of life or death. Today I felt like going up to the peanut butter eating families and letting them know about our situation and ask them to reconsider their food choice when coming to such an environment where the experience for kids is tactile in nature. Is that reasonable? I know that I don’t have a right to tell people what they can and cannot feed their kids but what if they were in our shoes? Would they feel the same way? Wouldn’t they want to help us keep our kids and others with this life-threatening allergy safe?

I’ll sign this one off with a deflated sigh… why has this happened to us?

“North Korea, with a population of about 23 million, has suffered acute food shortages for more than a decade.  United Nations and World Food Programme reports show that between two and three million North Korean children (infants to age five) consistently fail to receive the nutrients vital to their physical and mental development.  The result has seen the emergence of almost an entire generation of youngsters whose growth is stunted.

First Steps’ founding director Susan Ritchie was deeply moved by the plight of the children she saw as the interpreter for a Canadian government delegation that travelled to North Korea in 2000.  She was particularly affected at a home where a nursing mother didn’t have supplemental nutrition to feed her malnourished twins.  Susan vowed to herself to do something, and on her return to Vancouver she and other volunteers set about launching First Steps.  Susan’s fluency in Korean and understanding of Korean culture has been vital to gaining local trust and co-operation in First Steps’ mission”.

After sending over a container of Pablum in late 2001, which supplied nutrition to babies at an orphanage and paediatric hospital in Kangdong county, there sphere of influence continues to grow.  They have since provided 27 VitaCows and 36 VitaGoats

children receiving nutritious soy milk in North Korea

throughout North Korea.  Each of these highly efficient machines works in essence as a large pressure cooker to process raw soybeans into highly nutritious and protein-rich soy milk.  75 000 children are now the recipients of this liquid gold EVERY DAY!

While we realize that our contribution is merely a drop in the bucket, Better Baby Bums has recently donated 81 BPA-free baby bottles to help feed children in North Korea.  We are reminded of the story of the man who is walking along the beach during an ebbing tide.  He observes a young boy who was one by one throwing sea stars that had been left on the scorching rocks back into the cool waters of the ocean.  ”Young lad,” he says, “don’t you see that there are hundreds of sea stars all along this beach?  What difference can you possibly make?”  The young boy, wise for his years, replies, “but sir, I am making a difference for that one”.

If you would like to help, or to learn more about First Steps, we would like to encourage you to check out their website.

This shop is a new concept in retail and we believe that they will be putting themselves on the map as a destination for young families from all over MetroVancouver.  They are definitely worth the drive and are just minutes off of the Patullo Bridge.  We will be checking in from time to time ourselves and would love the opportunity to meet some of our loyal Better Baby Bums families face to face!  Hope to see you there!

Kidzown Boutiques

I will start at the beginning. This past July, we were enjoying supper at Corina’s place, when Alicia, one of my 2 yo twins, left the “kiddie” table and came up to us at the “big” table with hives appearing around her mouth. Before our eyes, the hives were spreading like wildfire. Having seen an anaphylactic episode myself, it was clear to me we were in trouble. I don’t think anyone else in the house quite realized the seriousness of what we were witnessing.

I shouted instructions to everyone in the house. “Joel, get the Benedryl out of the car (that I God-willing brought with us).” “Chris, get in our car, you’re taking us to the hospital.” “Corina, get a popsicle.”

Chris, my brother-in-law, Alicia, and I jumped in the mini van and drove like crazy to the emergency room. By the time we reached the hospital, Alicia’s airway was becoming compromised as she was starting to weeze and turn colour. Like a scene in a movie, I ran into the ER with her in my arms and screamed, “My daughter is in anaphylaxis!” Suddenly a swarm of nurses and a doctor grabbed her and went running. The quickly administered epinephrine and benedryl. The first dose was not enough, 20 minutes later, she needed another. The poor kid was jumping out of her skin and screaming like you’ve never heard a kid scream. Poor Chris, who at the time was suffering from ear-related issues, was trying to hold onto her whilst having her scream in his ear.

The most frightening part of all of this is that we had no idea what she ate to cause this. For dinner she had salmon, which she had eaten quite frequently before this happened. She had her first bite of a California roll, so we didn’t know if she was allergic to imitation crab meat, shell fish (from cross-contamination), sesame seeds, or ?????

We were referred to a pediatric allergist and waited seven long months for the appointment. In complete fear. If I could sum this experience and state of living up in one word, it is fear.

After scratch allergy tests for both of our twin girls. Surprisingly, the culprit looked to be peanuts or other nuts. Alicia was positive for peanuts and other nuts, Madelyn just for peanuts and much less severe than her sister. Because we didn’t know how peanuts or nuts would be in what she ate, our doc had us take it to the next step, a food challenge, to challenge salmon to see if the scratch test was innaccurate.

I had to purchase the salmon and cook it to bring to the hospital for the “food challenge”. For those of you unfamiliar with this procedure, you take a suspected food allergen that is not coming up positive in the scratch test, and have the child eat it in the hospital. The child eats small bits of the food at regular intervals and you sit and wait to see if they react. Quite honestly, it is one of THE most frightening things I have ever been part of. When I purchased the salmon to bring to the hospital, I sobbed in the grocery store. I wondered if what I purchased was going to kill my child. Once we were there, the room we were in had equipment to intubate her if necessary. Very intimidating. I knew we were in the best possible place to have something happen, but if you have ever seen your child turn blue once, you never want to see it again. Thankfully, she passed the challenge. We confirmed that salmon is ok.

Our next step is another appointment in a few months to have blood tests done on the girls. We didn’t opt to do it right away as they were so traumatized by the scratch test. This will give us a clearer picture of just how sensitive the girls are, and cover more potential allergens than we scratched for. Our son is also going to have scratch testing done since there is a 60% chance a sibling will have the same life threatening allergy.

What have we learned from all this so far? That people aren’t very understanding. That people have no idea how serious this actually is. That life is scary for us. That our world became much smaller after we found out. That knowledge is power. That you are truly your child’s only and best advocate. That sending our children into the regular school system could be too dangerous. How to use an epi pen. That we do have true friends that support us. How to read labels. How to cook from scratch. That I am a pit bull when it comes to watching out for my kids.

This lifestyle has changed our lives considerably. Socially, health-wise, and financially. It has put strain on relationships, it has limited where we can visit, it has limited our childrens’ choice for education, it is expensive to purchase nut-free products, and we are probably healthier because I have to cook most things from scratch.

I have learned a lot about coping and thriving with this situation. I will share as much as I learn with you as I continue blogging about this nut-free journey.

My first words of wisdom are these, buy an epi-jr pen. Even if you don’t think your kid has an allergy, you still never know. Just because your child didn’t react after a first exposure, doesn’t mean they won’t react. It is actually subsequent exposures that cause reaction. Also, what if a child visiting your home has a reaction? Administering epinephrine early enough can save a life. Make an epi-jr pen part of your home first-aid kit.You do not need a presciption to get one.  Also keep jr Benedryl in that kit as well. Know the symptoms of an anaphylactic reaction as they can vary (I’ll do a post on this next). Finally, be understanding of children that have a life-threatening allergy. Their parents are not trying to be pains in the butt or take away your “right” to feed your kid a peanut butter sandwich. They are protecting their children. Put yourself in their shoes, what would you do if you knew your child could die from such an exposure?

In my old, pre-mom job as an Agrologist, I spent a considerable amount of time talking to farmers about reducing and eventually eliminating their use of pesticides because of the harm to the environment and to their animals. 3 years ago, 3 horses died from respiratory distress likely caused from pesticide exposure from a product used to kill broad leaf weeds in a neighbouring pasture. I always found in my lectures that the environmental argument never got me far but harm to their animals struck a chord. I find this story unfortunate in that it takes the deaths of children for us to understand the gravity of using these chemicals.

I would like to applaud the numerous cities that are adopting pesticide by laws to stop people from putting their lawns first before the lives of our children. The laisez-faire attitude to using these poisons needs to stop. Just because you can easily buy them in your local garden shop, doesn’t mean that they don’t have the potential to do serious damage to your health and the health of those most vulnerable.

Embrace the dandelions, moss and small critters. There are a number of great natural alternatives out there to help with all of these things. Many available at your local garden shop. My biggest piece of advice to avoid these lawn-related “problems” is that you need to approach lawn care from a preventative perspective, not a reactive one. If you have a healthy lawn, you will not have weeds taking over. A simple soil test will tell you whether the soil is too acidic, or needs more nitrogen. I will post more on this later.

Please pass this story onto everyone that you know, especially those with children.

My heart goes out to this family and I hope that the chemical company will be held accountable for this.

As an Agrologist by trade, it was funny to me that I never thought of this before. A number of studies have shown pesticide residues residing in the homes of both farm and non farm families.

Pesticides are everywhere. Many are used on farms, but a lot are used for cosmetic purposes in suburbia. Pesticides include, herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides. Our kids go out and play on many surfaces that contain trace amounts of these and if they don’t take off their shoes, pesticides come on in with them.

Pesticide residues in homes are most often found in the carpet dust. While most pesticides are designed to break down in the environment over a period of time, they don’t do this as quickly in our homes because there isn’t any rain, wind, or soil microbes to help the process occur. Studies have shown these residues to persist over a period of one year.

Children are at most risk when it comes to the harmful effects of exposure to these toxic chemicals because they tend to play on the floor and stick everything in their mouths. Health effects include: brain cancer, birth defects, Parkinson’s Disease, Leukemia, miscarriage, infertility, asthma, and sterility. Their little bodies are also less able to detoxify themselves against what is a relatively greater exposure as opposed to adults because they breathe more air and consume more water for their body weight.

Given all this, make sure your kids take their shoes off when they get in the house and help to keep their home environment a little safer.

Since beginning my quest I’ve had the opportunity to try out and learn about many different types of natural disposable diapers.  These come in many shapes and sizes (literally!) but one thing that they all have in common is that they cost more than your regular drugstore brand.

Is the extra cost worth it, especially now that Huggies has come out with their own “natural” line?  At first blush the claims on the Huggies website sound promising! Daddytypes.com says it well, though, that “instead of sodium polyacrylate, they (Huggies Pure and Natural diapers) are made from recycled buzzwords”.  He goes on to point out that, “every phrase is loaded to the point of blowout: “includes,” not “made from”; “initial steps toward environmental improvements,” not “finally, good for the environment.”  Frankly, I’m always concerned when I see an asterix after a product name like “Pure and Natural” but can’t find the corresponding definition of that asterix anywhere on the site.

Let’s explore Seventh Generation next.  While we like the full disclosure model that Seventh Generation seems to follow on their website we do take issue with the common misnomer that these diapers are biodegradable.  They are perhaps biodegradable in the same way that a plastic water bottle is biodegradable.  While Seventh Generation certainly doesn’t make such claims about their own products they do sell themselves as a green brand.  Their claim to fame is that their diapers are “chlorine free”.  According to the manufacturers of Nature Babycare diapers, though, chlorine is rarely used by anyone anymore to whiten diapers.  So what are we getting when we purchase Seventh Generation diapers (which are dyed brown, by the way)?  Perhaps a bit of extra peace of mind that Seventh Generation seems to have  a real commitment to the environment (and to keeping a piece of this decade’s Table d’Hote: Greenwash Pie).

Is there an answer to all of this?  Especially in light of studies such the one published by German researchers, which have found that increased scrotal temperature (aggrevated by plastic disposable diapers) can lead to sterility in our males.  At Better Baby Bums we are just optimistic enough to believe that yes, there is an answer.  Jen and I both alternate between cloth diapers and biodegradable disposables on our own little ones.  When they are in disposables, which let’s face it, happens more often than not in my busy household, I am sure to put my little diaper-wearing baby  in a diaper that is not oil-based.  And yes, in case you haven’t heard this before, “conventional” disposable diapers are made out of oil and are, amongst other things, in essence plastic.

Our faves?

Broody Chick: these diapers are made from Ingeo fibres, which are produced from fermented (non GMO) corn.  They are the first and only disposable diapers that are completely biodegradable, right down to their absorbent core.

Nature Babycare: also corn-based, these diapers are slightly less biodegradable than Broody Chick.  The tabs need to be removed and the absorbent cellulose core won’t completely break down, but will rather provide some aeration to the compost.

Bambo: recipient of the prestigious Nordic Ecolabel, or Swan logo, to signify the high level of sustainability in the production of these diapers,  each step of the way.  These diapers are made from highly renewable bamboo fibres.

Earth’s Best: made from a combo of corn and wheat.  Less biodegradable than the first three brands as they still contain some petrochemicals.  For tricky-to-fit babies these are a great choice!

We are hopeful that more and more communities across North America will adopt a compost pick-up system which will allow these diapers to avoid having their final resting place be in landfills.  While you may have success composting the wet (not soiled) diapers in your properly managed backyard composter, the greenest way to dispose of these diapers is to bring them to a commercial composting system, such as those that many municipalities are now using for their yard waste.  In this environment they will receive the optimal temperatures and moisture level to allow them to properly decompose.  We would like to encourage you to contact your local government officials and request that they follow in the footsteps of a number of European communities in creating the proper composting facilities for all green waste.  In the meantime, we are confident that we are doing right by our kids by keeping them safely swaddled in any of the brands that we carry on our site.

Although  you might feel that you’re lessoning your footprint by flushing your garbage rather than taking it to the curb, quite the opposite is true.  Quoting from the gDiapers website, “no garbage, no guilt”.  But there should be guilt!  The various components of these “flushable” diapers can wreak havoc on a city’s sewer system (not to mention my own plumbing, as you may recall from an earlier blog post!).  If you manage to successfully flush the liner that isn’t the end of it.  On the contrary, flushing is simply the beginning of a very long journey for these seemingly innocent bits of fluff and rayon.  The manufacturer recommends a double flush to get these down the toilet.  Because the sewage pumps aren’t always able to move the solids along, city workers are having to routinely flush these little dandies along the way to finally reach the sewage treatment plant, using even more water to do that.  But that still isn’t the end.  It would seem that bits and pieces of the liners get hung up in each of the stages of turning sewage into treated waste water that can be reintegrated into the water stream.  And there’s one last problem there, too.  The cellulose (which is the absorbent gel in the liner) remains suspended in the effluent, making it cloudy.  This cloudiness interferes with the UV sterilization process that the city relies on to kill any pathogens in the water before releasing it into the Columbia River.

The conclusion that was drawn from this study was that it was better to toss the liners out with regular trash.  Hmmm… so now our options are to either clog up the sewage with the refills or to add them to the trash pile (which, by the way, is where most of the solid waste that we flush gets trucked away to anyway).  We know that there are many faithful gDiapers fans out there.  We implore you, though, if you’re going to keep using this system, please take out the middle man and just toss the soiled refills straight in the garbage.  The reality is that if you’re using a disposable diapering system there is no such thing as a “no garbage” solution.  You might be feeling as if you’re flushing your guilt away along with the diaper refill but you are in fact making a bigger environmental impact than had you simply tossed the guilt in the diaper pail!

Did it help? I don’t know. Maybe the stinging and burning distracted me from my ailment.

Given that I tend to steer clear of chemical-based products, especially ones on my children’s skin, and that I promised myself that I wouldn’t torture my kids with such treatment as my mom did me, I began to seek alternatives.

I came up dry. Other than the “No Name” versions of Vicks, that is. One thing that I noticed that they all had in common was their warnings not to use the products on infants or children under 2. This got me wondering why and here is what I found.

A case reported in Clinical Toxology 44:357-370, 2006 (http://www.aapcc.org/archive/FinalizedPMGdlns/camphor.pdf)  reported a case of a 2 month old infant hospitalized for an unrelated illness was discovered to have camphor poisoning due to repeated use of Vicks.

Vicks is made from menthol, camphor, eucalyptus oil, cedarleaf oil, nutmeg oil, thymol and turpentine oil suspended in a beeswax base.

Camphor, the active ingredient, is dangerous if ingested. Historically it has been used as an aphrodisiac, contraceptive, abortifcient, analeptic, lactation suppressant, cardiac and central nervous system stimulant, cold remedy, muscle and joint liniment, and rodent repellent. Important to note that Camphor poisoning symptoms include stomach ache,  nausea, vomiting, irritability, and seizures.

While I realize that reactions from exposure on the skin are rare, I think that if I can avoid the stuff, I will.

So the question remained, what do I use instead? Well, I got my answer when we began working with a new Canadian company called Broody Chick. Broody Chick has a line of natural skin care products that includes one my my new faves and a mom-must-have, Sniffs and Snuffles (Canadian link and USA link).

Steph, creator of Sniffs and Snuffles, “wanted to create a salve or balm that could be rubbed onto baby, the act of gently rubbing a baby’s chest or back is very soothing itself, but if the balm contained very gentle decongestants that would calm and soother irritated airways and realse nasal and chest congestion, then all the better.”

Here is Steph’s description of the ingredients she lovingly selected, “The balm itself is a blend of coconut oil, bees wax, macadamia oil and vitamin E ,this melds together to form a light,readily absorbed base. The oils I choose to incorporate are all safe to use on young children and have no contraindications (in the percentages I use them in). Eucalyptus blue gum, or fever tree, as it is also known,a traditional oil used for respiratory ailments such as bronchitis and croup, Frankincense used medicinally in the east and west for respiratory infections, Indian myrrh used for its ability to ease asthma, coughs, the common cold and catarrh and Ravensara for its ability to assist with respiratory problems colds and flu, sinusitis and lung infections.

The oils were all chosen not only for they’re therapeutic qualities but when blended together they create a wonderful calming and soothing aroma that doesn’t over power the senses and it actually does work!!!!!!

All of the Broody Chick skin care range has been created with this kind of fore thought, the best possible ingredients combined with the best possible therapeutic benefits of pure essential oils.”

Both Corina and I have used it on our entire families and the stuff just plain works! I rub some on my kids’ chests and backs, especially at night time when they are congested, and they sleep WAY better than without. One application seems to work all night long.

My whole household is sick with colds at the moment and I don’t know how we’d get on without the stuff! Thank you Steph and Broody Chick for a safe, effective, economical alternative!