Cleaning News U Can Use
March 2009
Cleaning Products Could be Harmful to Your Health

In the past decade or so there have been some vocal claims by numerous health groups who claim that cleaning supplies contain harmful chemicals. The claims have mostly been that the chemicals in many common household cleaners make children, in particular, sick and cause fertility related problems in women.  There have been no definitive studies to prove or disprove these hypothesis.  But, a new UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles) study, just released in the winter of 2009 brings to the public some of the most compelling evidence yet that common household products, some of which include cleaning products, can cause fertility problems in women such as taking longer to conceive. In fact, the U.S. Center for Disease Control reports that about 8% of women in the U.S have gone to their doctor for fertility related problems.

The study looked at a specific chemical called Perfluiorinated chemical's or PFC's. Two specific types of PFC's were looked at:PFOA and PFOS which are ingredients in common household products including upholstery, pesticides, shampoos and more.  The blood from about 1,200 newly pregnant women was analyzed and the results showed that these chemicals do affect women and fertility.  Of course, it is important to keep in mind that, as with any new study, caution with the results should be taken as more research needs to be done to further validate the results.

The results were that women with higher levels of these children were all women who had taken longer, mostly six or more months to become pregnant.  There was a clear difference between the two groups of women. Those who got pregnant easily had very low levels of the chemicals.

These results could be alarming to for some.  There are simple steps you can take to prevent so much exposure to these chemicals.  It is impossible to prevent contact with PFC's as they are in so much of everything we are surrounded with.  But a good place to start is to try to buy shampoos without it (which can be done by purchasing all natural ingredient shampoos) or by using more natural cleaning products. Using natural cleaning products does not mean that you have to spend a lot of money on fancy products.  There are many inexpensive natural cleaning products that you probably have right in your home such as lemons, vinegar and baking soda.  Learn more about natural cleaning products.

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