Yesterday’s New York Times Sunday magazine has a terrific article on contaminants in human breastmilk—a subject that’s obviously of greatinterest to us.
It’s beautifully written, and a great overview of the topic. Definitely worth a read.
Update: Here’s one thing that I wish the author had stressed more: testing breast milk for contaminants is a good way of finding out what a baby might have been exposed to while still in the womb. The developing fetus is particularly sensitive to the effects of toxic chemicals—which makes many researchers far more concerned about prenatal exposures than about what’s in breastmilk. And as the article points out, research suggests that despite the presence of contaminants, breastfed babies still do better than their bottle-fed counterparts.
