Parents need to be sure that their little ones don't come in contact with chemicals present in baby products.
According to Parents India Magazine, most bathing soaps and shampoos are nothing but a lot of chemicals and toxic substances with harsh ingredients like SLS (sodium laureth suphate), which is an inexpensive ingredient and a good foaming agent.
SLS is known to cause permanent damages to the eyes and the liver, and can also lead to the impairment of the hair follicles and most of liquid soaps such as face wash, hand wash and body wash contain a chemical called triclosan, which is used to cover up the smell of the other chemicals used in making the product and therefore, ideal for cleaning grease. It is essentially a strong surfactant also.
Even the baby shampoos which claim to be no tears' actually contain more number of chemicals.
Baby massage oils are usually made of mineral oils, mentioned on the label as paraffin oil, hydraulic oil and lubricating oil, but in reality are nothing but fancy names for a liquid produced by distillation of petroleum.
The petroleum covers the skin with a layer that prevents the skin's ability to breathe and thus the skin is prevented from releasing toxins through sweat as it is locked.
In fact, it is known that unrefined or mildly refined mineral oil can potentially cause cancer because it contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a naturally occurring substance in coal and petroleum.
Mothers should also take care of the wet wipes they use on their baby's body as most wet wipes contain alcohol, parabens (found in breast cancer tumours), triclosan (which causes altered hormone regulation), urea (synthetically formulated urine) and many more such chemicals.
As an alternative, mothers can use washed cotton cloth or handkerchiefs, which will not only help in keeping the baby away from chemicals, but will also save paper.
