Lead is such a dreaded word for parents. We all know it’s harmful to the development of babies and children, and we know that lead paint and also tainted water supplies can be primary sources of lead poisoning. What is less clear is how many other sources of lead are a real risk to our kids.
My 3-year old has detectable levels of lead in her system. Fortunately, it is not above the threshold that is considered to be problematic (yet – the CDC keeps lowering that threshold), but it is troublesome nonetheless, given how careful I have been with her environment and in regularly washing her hands. We don’t live in a house built in or before the 1970’s. I have had our water at home tested, and the lead levels are non-detectable; plus we use a certified water filter.
So how is she ingesting lead? Possible sources may be:
- Food: She eats a lot of the foods that are known to contain some levels of lead, such as sweet potatoes, carrots, turnips, and other root vegetables. Chocolate can contain lead as well, and she loves her chocolate! Note that another source of lead that one may be surprised to hear about is juice – which is totally unacceptable, given how many children drink juice. Even turmeric, ginger, and hard candies have been tested and shown to contain lead. It’s hard to know what to trust!
- Soil: Soil can contain high levels of lead, especially in places like the New England, with its high number of older houses with lead paint. The time period when gasoline contained lead also didn’t help. My daughter played heartily in the dirt in parks around where we live, so possibly could have picked some up in that way; or soil from outside gets swept into our home through our windows and ends up in our dust. We are careful to take our shoes off when we come in from outside and to clean (sweep, vacuum, etc.) our home regularly.
- Toys: I do not trust any products from China. Period. They do not have the same regulations around product safety that we do in the US (which still is not perfect, but better). I have spent hours researching and selecting products that are made of natural materials and not manufactured in China when possible, and in many cases have sought certifications of some sort that show the products are safe. But I will admit that as she has gotten older, I haven’t been as vigilant and have let some plastic, rubber, and metal China-made products into our house.
- Brass or other metal products containing lead: My parents’ house is filled with brass doorknobs and other fixtures since the home was built in the early 1900’s. These fixtures most certainly contain lead, though the amount that rubs off on our hands when we touch them is unclear.
- House and car keys: We had a lead inspector come to our house to use an XRF machine test for the presence of lead in various items, to get to the bottom of where my daughter could be ingesting lead. He tested our ceramic pots, brass handles and fixtures, plastic toy, keys, bathroom tile floor, ceramic toilet, Christmas string lights, and the dust inside of our home and on the windowsill outside of my daughter’s room. Some items, like the brass fixtures, did contain small amounts of lead at levels that did not concern the lead inspector. But the items with the most alarming levels of lead that he tested were our keys: house keys and car keys.
Here is the key question: How much lead is coming off these items and onto our hands when we touch them? Or into the dust in our homes? There isn’t a way to test this amount accurately. There are test sticks you can buy that apparently detect how much lead rubs off, but these apparently are not very reliable yet. At most, there are two test sticks that are recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as having high reliability in determining that lead is not present with a negative result. But they give an exceptionally high false-positive rate, so I have decided not to try them.
I haven’t found anyone yet who has answers to my aforementioned questions. I’ve spoken with the lead inspector, the state agency that provides resources and support related to lead exposure, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and our pediatrician, and no one seems to know.
In the meantime, one of the more positive conversations I recently had with a care provider on this topic resulted in me learning that if your child’s lead level goes above the current threshold of 3.5 micrograms, then the child can be given iron to help wash some of the excess lead out of his/her body. I know this is not entirely reassuring because you don’t want high lead levels to begin with, but it is good to know that the body can get rid of lead – it isn’t stuck in there forever. Particularly when you are young. My daughter’s own recently blood test showed that lead levels have gone down and are <1 microgram, which I’m relieved to see.