Growing Up Organic

As an expectant parent, you want to ensure that your baby is born healthy. You take prenatal vitamins, stop drinking alcohol, eat a balanced diet, and take prenatal classes. But what about the potential danger in eating non-organic foods?

Conventional agriculture uses synthetic pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, growth hormones and genetically modified organisms. Many of the pesticides used in conventional farming were developed during World War II as chemical warfare - such as nerve gases and Agent Orange.

Young children are the most vulnerable to the negative effects of conventional diets because they consume more food per kilogram of body mass than adults. The potential negative impacts conventional diets can have on your growing child include: learning disabilities; attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; developmental delays; autism; cancer; and behavioural disorders.

In utero, our babies grow at an alarming rate, both physically and mentally. Each of these stages is important to your baby's overall health. Studies have shown that chemicals from the mother's diet are present in the placenta – showing up to 15 of the 17 pesticides tested.1 This exposure to pesticides has been associated with neonatal malformations.

Once born, your baby is still extremely vulnerable as their bodies are still developing. Breastfeeding your baby can contribute greatly to your child's overall health. However, pesticide residues found on foods we consume are stored in fatty tissue. Breast milk naturally contains high levels of fat; thereby containing high concentrations of agricultural pesticides.2 Your baby's developing nervous system absorbs these substances faster and has more difficulty eliminating them than an adult.

Certified organic food is grown without the use of these dangerous synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, plant and animal growth regulators (hormones), antibiotics and genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In addition to this, organic foods have been shown to have higher levels in minerals, vitamins and cancer fighting anti-oxidants.3

Growing Up Organic, a project run by Canadian Organic Growers, is working towards making local organic foods more available in Eastern Ontario, especially at daycares and schools. To find out which daycares in Ottawa source at least some of their products from organic growers, contact us at 613-233-6294 or email Lynda Hall at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

For home shopping, check out your local farmers market, talk to farmers asking them what farming practices they use, join a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box program, buy organic foods at your local grocery store, or start your own organic garden in your backyard or on your balcony! Canadian Organic Growers has a list of organic producers in its Ottawa Regional Organic Food Directory, available online at www.cog.ca/ottawa, as well as a schedule of upcoming organic growing courses.

There is a wide variety of information out there on organics, some supportive, some not. But when it comes to your baby's health, do you want to take any chances?

1. Women's Health News. Friday 1-Sept-2006. CROW, Inc. http://crowinc.org/Placenta.htm.

2. Pediatrics. Impact of Prenatal Chlorpyrifos Exposure on Neurodevelopment in the First 3 Years of Life Among Inner-City Children. Virginia A. Rauh, ScDa, Robin Garfinkel, PhDa, Frederica P. Perera, DrPHa, Howard F. Andrews, PhDa, Lori Hoepner, MPHa, Dana B. Barr, PhD, DLSb, Ralph Whitehead, MPHb, Deliang Tang, DrPHa and Robin W. Whyatt, DrPHa. November 2006. http://crowinc.org/MothersOpposeMalathion.html

3. Heaton, S, (2001). Organic Farming, Food Quality and Human Health Soil Association, Bristol, UK, 88p