Children and Toxins- why are they more
susceptible?
By Kerri Errington Medical Radiation Technologist
Children’s have unique vulnerabilities and susceptibilities to toxins because of their lifestyles,
developmental stages, size and the way they metabolize chemicals. They also have a long life
expectancy. Children’s bodies and behaviours differ from adults.
Lifestyles: Children behave differently than adults, leading to a different pattern of
exposures to the world around them. They exhibit behaviours that increase their
contact with chemical toxicants. For example, they exhibit hand-to-mouth
behavior, ingesting whatever substances may be on their hands, toys, household
items and floors. Children play and live in a different space than do adults. For
example, very young children spend hours close to the ground where there may
be more exposure to toxicants in dust, soil, and carpets as well as low-lying
vapours such as radon, mercury vapour or pesticides.
Developmental: Children’s systems, specifically their nervous, reproductive,
digestive, respiratory and immune systems, are developing. This process of
development creates periods of vulnerability. Exposure to toxicants at such times
may result in irreversible damage when the same exposure to a mature system
may result in little or no damage. A new-born baby has the body structures that
control respiration, heartbeat, reflexes and bone growth, but the organ
development continues for 10 – 15 years and these body systems and organs
are more sensitive to environmental toxicants!
Size: Children are growing. Pound for pound, children eat more food, drink more water and
breathe more air than adults do. Thus, they are likely to be more exposed to substances in
their environment than are adults. Children have higher metabolic rates than adults and are
different from adults in how their bodies absorb, detoxify and excrete toxicants.
Life Expectancy: Children have a longer life expectancy than adults; thus they
have more time to develop diseases with long latency periods that may be
triggered by early environmental exposures, such as cancer or Parkinson's
disease.
Children, today, live in a world full of substances that they are regularly exposed
to. Our children are exposed to hundreds, if not thousands, of substances new to
human environments. Synthetic chemicals are widespread in our environment
world-wide, and traces of these compounds are found in all humans and animals.
For the majority of the thousands of new chemicals introduced into children’s
environments since World War II, little is known about the health effects on
children. We know many of these are readily passed across the placenta to the
fetus or to the infant via breast milk, too.
There are too many untested substances that are in the indoor air in homes,
daycare centers and schools and in automobiles. There are treatments applied to
children’s clothing, are allowed in personal care items like soaps, sunscreens
and toothpaste, are in or on toys that children put in their mouths, and are
allowed in food packaging and containers. Relatively few chemicals have been
assessed with regard to human health impacts, and even fewer for the potential
for exposure and harm to children. Most hazards, unless severe and acute, are
not identified.
There is emerging evidence of links between chronic diseases such as cancer,
asthma and birth defects and environmental exposures. Yet, we have virtually
no information about our children’s exposures to environmental toxicants that
may be linked to such diseases. Currently, we are just beginning to research how
to establish national or provincial systems that would track and link exposures to
environmental toxicants and potentially related health effects. The capability to
track environmental exposures and chronic diseases and to evaluate their
possible relationship is especially important for pediatric health conditions such
as asthma and birth defects.
Anything that we can do as a family, neighbourhood, community or nation, to limit
children’s exposure to chemicals and their unknown effects, will be nothing short
of a great thing! We have a moral obligation to our children and their children to
ensure that their health is adequately protected. Using Norwex Enviro Products
gives us the tools to do this, however small it may seem to reduce the cleaning
chemicals in our homes, it is in fact the first step in reducing our kids’ exposure!