Reply to Massive paranoia about flame retardants in baby gear and hubby is angry! HELP!!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]Also most strollers are treated like Peg Perego. Bob is not but they are expensive. ALL infant carriers are treated but some are better than others. You can follow that research on my blog as my baby #2 is on the way and I am on the hunt for the safest one
And the treatments do NOT wash out FYI
You can buy used furniture, just make sure it is real wood and not particle board or MDF. We bought Million Dollar Baby as it was cheap and real pine. THe drawers were MDF on the bottom so we sealed them with Shellac
Lot's of companies like Fisher Price will give you incorrect info when asked. They are required by california law to meet certain standards. (Tech 117) so large companies comply with all of their products since they are not going to make different products for CA. If it has Polyurethane then you can be rest assured it is COATED in flame retardant regardless of what the company says. I have learned in my business if you contact these companies 10 times you will get 10 different answers depending on how you ask the question.
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It's so true about the companies. Sometimes I wonder how much people in customer service know or care to know. I have this MyBrestFreind nursing pillow, which I loved when I had my son. Just lately I realized that it may contain FRs, since it does have a tag with California law 117. So I decided to contact them about the issue. They wrote back saying that their pillows do not contain any fire retardants. The funny thing is, this pillow is completely made out of polyurethane foam, which is highly flammable and in no way can withstand California flammability law on its own. I wrote back to the company asking to clarify this aspect for me with their manufacturer. Honestly, I'm afraid they will not bother answering. If they do, I'll update my post. It's a really neat nursing pillow, but I probably will not be able to use it with my upcoming baby.

You know, there are a lot toxins out there, but what really annoys me with fire retardants, is that they are so unnecessary! Why, for crying out loud, nursing pillows need to fire retardant? I kind of feel that all those mega chemical companies trying to push laws, so more products would need to have fire retardants, and so they would have more sales. It's highly upsetting that they chose babies as one of their targets. From the info I found online, firemen themselves say that baby staff rarely involved in starting a fire, and if the fire is big enough, fire retardant staff burns as well as any other. Any toxins are annoying, but fire retardant issue simply seems overly obnoxious and forced on us with no good reason. Studies have showed, that such things as fire alarms, fire sprinklers, and self-extinguishing cigarettes do much better job at preventing fires than pounds of toxic fire retardants in our furniture or baby staff.

I currently live in San Diego, we do have strong fires here, so I should be pretty concerned about fire safety. However, people here get evacuated from neighborhoods way before fire gets to ones home. Besides, nobody in my family smokes, and we do have fire alarms, so I don't see the need to poison me and or my family with pounds of toxic FRs. When there are fires here, people are asked to put masks on or stay in doors, if possible, because outdoor air get so polluted with all toxic chemicals that burn with our homes. Fire retardants make firement work harder and more dangerous but in no way easier. The other ridiculous thing about FRs that they come in pounds, not trace amounts as pesticides in our food for example.

I mean I try to buy organic food, and I don't like conventional farming. However, here at least I can see why we came to it. It was an agricultural revolution, and helped us to have more affordable food in big quantities (that's why there is so many of us on this Earth :-)), but at least I see why our ancestors wanted to do it. Besides, back than they didn't know about all the harm that toxins bring. It's still an issue and needs to addressed. Farming needs to rebuilt itself according to new knowledge we now posses, but it will not be a quick change since not everybody can afford organic food, and switching from conventional to organic farming is not an easy road for a farmer. Fire retardants is totally different issue, however, there is really no need in them as studies show, and yet pounds of them are being forced on consumers without any choice. Unlike in agriculture, change in this toxic issue could happen very quickly if California law would change! That's why this issue is the most interesting for me at the moment. If we could push politicians to change this outdated law, we could drastically cut on toxins in our homes within a few years! I really hope the Consumer Choice Fire Safety Act proposed by senator Leno will come through. That would finally give us a choice whether we want fire retardant staff in our houses or not. I keep my fingers crossed![/quote]

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