ACTIVITIES
Education-
MNCHEC
is involved in many levels of community education. MNCHEC
holds workshops to train parent educators, as well as classes
for parents on basic children's environmental health and
steps to take to prevent harm. Two of our members taught
area schools about integrated pest management in an effort
to protect children from pesticide exposures.
We
are currently creating a training guide and lecture script
for educating nursing students and ECFE educators. The training
guide will contain independent modules making it a flexible
resource that both trains educators and can be used by the
educators to teach parents.
Check
back soon to download your own copy and educate
people in your community!
Breast
milk biomonitoring - MNCHEC
is working with the Minnesota Department of Health to test
the breast milk of MN moms for toxic contaminants. The purpose
of this testing isn't strictly just to see what's in there
(we know that, unfortunately, every woman's breast milk
has traces of contaminants). We are looking to see what
women can do to decrease the amount. (i.e. eat more organics,
stop wearing perfumes with toxicants, use non-toxic cleaners,
etc.) To that end, each woman will give an initial sample,
select behaviors to change at home, and then give a follow-up
sample after 6 months to measure if there's a decrease in
contaminants.
"The
question is not whether we should feed our babies chemically
contaminated, yet clearly superior, breast milk or chemically
uncontaminated, yet clearly inferior, formula. The question
is, what do we need to do to get chemical contaminants out
of clearly superior breast milk?"
more from Sandra Steingraber's article "Purifying
Breast Milk: A Human Rights Issue"
*Please
note that formula is not always free from contaminants.
*Evidence
shows that the benefits of breastfeeding far outweigh the
potential risks, for this reason MNCHEC, along with the
AAP, recommends breastfeeding for at least the first year
of your child's life.
MNCHEC
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