Babies Are Full of Microplastics (Script & Sources)

Good morning, bad news: babies are full of micro plastics, in fact, babies have 10 times as much micro plastic in their bodies as adults do! A recent study published by researchers from the United States and China found that tiny particles of synthetic material that are smaller than 5 millimeters in size, were present in fecal samples from adults, infants, and even newborn babies - and another study from December of 2020 found micro plastics in the placenta of pregnant women, on both the fetal and maternal sides because most measured about 10 microns, which is small enough to be carried through the bloodstream. And now we know that it does make its way into newborn babies, who accumulate it from the environment at an alarming rate before and after birth.

The study assumes the higher plastic content comes from babies chewing on plastic products and synthetic clothing, and even infant formula that’s prepared in plastic bottles can contain millions of microplastics. It’s inescapable, they come from fibers in carpets, food containers, pacifiers are pieces of plastic designed to go in a baby’s mouth.

But what’s worse is that this isn’t even remotely surprising - although plastic itself was only invented in the last century, meaning it literally didn’t exist in any form before the early 20th century, it has now completely dominated our ecosystem. Globally we produce more than 320 million tons of it every year and nearly half, 40%, is for single-use packaging which immediately becomes 130 million tons of plastic waste.

In fact, 80% of all the plastic that has been manufactured since the 1940s, about 8.3 billion tons, has been thrown into landfills where it has broken down into microscopic particles, and slowly contaminated the entire earth. From the deepest trenches in the ocean to the most barren part of the arctic, to deep in your bloodstream where it accumulates in the kidneys, liver, and brain - plastic is literally everywhere.

Microplastics are in our food, our drinking water, our poop, there are even microplastics in the air! On average, humans consume between 1/10th of a gram, and 5 grams of microplastics every single week. You. Are full. Of Microplastics.

And while we still don’t know just how bad that is, although obviously, it’s not good - we do know that plastics commonly contain EDCs which are endocrine-disrupting chemicals, that mimic hormones in our bodies that affect things like sleep, fertility, and sexual development. Studies have shown that these chemical can even raise the risk of diabetes and cancer. And even when plastics don’t contain EDCs, they are, by definition, foreign bodies and can trigger immune reactions and disorders. We know that being infested with plastic is bad for us, we just don’t know how bad.

For over 50 years, we pumped toxic lead into the air so that we could burn gasoline a little better, and even though we’ve mostly stopped doing that by the early 2000s, the damage caused by it is still impossible to gauge even today. The fact that we’re producing plastic waste at such an exponential rate that it’s showing up in newborn babies should be serious cause for alarm. Not every single thing needs its own plastic packaging. Then again, the plastics industry generates about $350 billion dollars a year, and chemical giants who make that plastic spend millions on pro-plastic propaganda, lobbying, and lawsuits to keep producing plastic - convincing lawmakers that recycling is better than cutting back on manufacturing, and yet only 9% of all plastic waste in the US is actually recycled, and the US is a global leader in this regard.

So when companies like Nestle, who produce unfathomable amounts of plastic just to sell water, pledge to make their packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025, it likely won’t make a difference if we’re already finding Microplastics plastic in newborn babies.