BabySafe in Seven Steps

January 20, 2014
This informative and chatty guide is aimed at parents seeking to purge their home of toxic substances that can hurt their family. As with similar titles, the book highlights the basics of baby care (pregnancy, bathing, play, food, and sleep) through the lens of a babyâs environment (womb, bathroom, home, kitchen, and crib). Writing with Rose, Schwartz and Garber draw on their expertise as fathers and as the owners of a company that produces and markets âatural, nontoxic, and effective household and personal care productsâ for babies. As such, itâs hard to get past the commercial for BabyGanics products: âWhat we discovered when developing our BabyGanics foaming dish and bottle soap is that you can have it both ways: a product thatâs safeâfree of alcohol, solvents, sulfates, phthalates and fragranceâand effective at the same time.â The authors write in a dad-next-door tone, as if to downplay their use of scientific terms such as bisphenol A and perfluorooctanoic acid. The authors source the same experts that advise their business, but they throw in the occasional caveat emptor (âwe are not nutritionistsâ)⦠before giving their advice anyway. Readers would do well to enjoy the discussion, but take it with a grain of salt. Agent: Yfat Reiss Gendell, Foundry Media.

May 15, 2014

Schwartz and Keith Garber are the founders of BabyGanics, a line of baby-safe household and body care products. Cognizant of ingredients that might be safe for the earth but not good for baby, they here offer a question-and-answer-style guide to products such as cosmetics (beware of hydroquinone, an antiaging product linked to compromised immune health), food and water (beware of bisphenol, a suspected endocrine disrupter), and even mineral oil, which can form a layer on the skin, sealing pores and trapping bacteria. While much of the information screams, "danger!" the authors aren't fans of the antibacterial hype, and also serve up such common-sense advice as "air out your house each day." VERDICT Children definitely have more porous neural pathways than adults and thus should be pampered with that information in mind, however, not everything can be controlled, so the book seems a bit much at times. This work might freak out the uninitiated, but those who are already fans of the BabyGanics line will appreciate. Purchase accordingly.

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