Microplastics In Formula Milk

Amy and Jen discuss the recent guardian headlines stating that 'bottle fed babies swallow millions of micro plastics every day'. We discuss what micro plastics are, where they can be found and whether or not they are in babies' milk as this headline reports. We give answers to the questions that might be springing to your mind according to the most recent evidence available - do we ingest them, do we absorb them into organs, can they cross into the placenta and most importantly - should we be worried about them?

We talk about some possible alternatives to reduce the risk for parents who are concerned about potential health risks, as well as pitfalls to watch out in terms of formula milk preparation and advice health visitors can give with confidence.

As ever we love to hear your comments, suggestions or ideas for this or future episodes, drop us an email to [email protected]

Resources and References:

Guardian Article
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/19/bottle-fed-babies-swallow-millions-microplastics-day-study

Microplastics in food (adults and children) Cox et al 2019
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.9b01517

Microplastic contamination of drinking water: A systematic review
Danopoulos, Twiddy & Rotchelle 2020
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32735575/

Plastic teabags have recently been shown to release
microplastics and nano plastics into our cups of tea.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.9b02540

We can also estimate that we all ingest around 80g of micro plastics per day from fruits and vegetables, because the soil is polluted with them.
Ebere, Wirnkor & Ngozi 2019
http://www.worldscientificnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/WSN-131-2019-256-267.pdf

Smith et al 2018 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6132564/

Campanale et al 2020
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/4/1212/pdf

First Steps Nutrition Guidance on preparation of milk:
https://www.firststepsnutrition.org/making-infant-milk-safely