Daily HealthBeat Tip

Safe as mother’s milk

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

We humans are basically highly complex carbon compounds. But sometimes other things get mixed in there – industrial chemicals that are a part of our modern world. We wonder if they’re harmful. And beastfeeding moms might wonder if the chemicals are OK to pass along to a baby in breast milk.

An international panel looked at that. And Dr. Cheston Berlin of Penn State University School of Medicine, who led the panel, reported on it at a conference sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Resources and Services Administration:

"There had been very, very few reports of environmental chemicals being hazardous to infants, and they usually involve episodes where the mother has a very large exposure such as an industrial accident." (14 seconds)

Berlin also says breast milk is the gold standard for feeding babies.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: October 31, 2005

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