HEALTH Babies get PFAS with their milk
A lack of data on chemicals in breast milk and infant formula has been highlighted. Ferrier reports from Brisbane.
BABIES are getting potentially harmful chemicals with their milk and may also be drawing down on the stores in their mothers’ bodies, a conference in Adelaide has heard.
Scientists at the international event, focused on the planet’s contamination problems, have been told there’s very little data on perand polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) concentrations in breast milk and formula.
But there’s no question the socalled forever chemicals are present in both — a reflection of the fact they are literally everywhere on Earth, including inside the bodies of humans, animals, in food and in water supplies.
PFAS are a vast family of manmade chemicals associated with a range of serious human health risks. There are thousands of different types and they are used in everything from food packaging and paints to makeup, shampoo and fabrics.
United Statesbased researcher Judy LaKind said there was an urgent need for global data on PFAS loads in breast milk and formula.
‘‘About 20 years ago, colleagues and I made a call for a national breast milk monitoring programme in the US so we could begin to have a better understanding of infant exposures to environmental chemicals from breastfeeding,’’ she told delegates.
The programme never eventuated and Dr LaKind said the lack of data was a global problem.
‘‘So despite 20 years of knowing that PFAS are in most of us . . . and also being well aware that lactational transfer is a source of infant exposure . . . there are still important questions about breastfeeding related exposure that we can’t answer.’’
The data gaps needed to be plugged if scientists were to understand whether infants faced risks from their earliest sources of food, she said.
One critical question is whether using formula instead of breast milk can reduce exposure. Another is whether breastfed infants might be drawing down on PFAS loads stored in their mothers’ bodies. The jury is out on that.
‘‘One study suggested that this in fact could happen with PFAS during breastfeeding as they observed decreases in PFAS in the women they followed over the course of lactation,’’ Dr LaKind said.
‘‘One other recent study also recorded a decrease in PFAS over the course of lactation. However, two other existing studies found differing results. These conflicting results really don’t allow us to say definitively.’’
There was also a global imperative to look at PFAS in formula, so a comparison with breast milk could be made, she said. But she noted the inherent problem of working out PFAS concentrations in formula, given it is often in powdered form and mixed with tap or bottled water, which have their own PFAS loads.
‘‘We don’t have sufficient information at this point to state with any confidence that one source of infant nutrition necessarily has lower PFAS levels than another.
‘‘To date, the benefits of breastfeeding in comparison to formula feeding have been recognised despite the presence of environmental chemicals. Research on both breast milk and formula is needed now.’’ — AAP