What you need to know about BPA & Silicone Baby Products

What is BPA?

Bisphenol A (BPA) is used to make polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. Epoxy resins are sometimes used as interior liners in food packaging. Polycarbonate plastics are frequently used because they are clear and almost shatterproof. These plastics are used in sports bottles, baby bottles, medical devices, CDs, electronics, and many other common household items. BPA has been shown to be an endocrine disruptor. This means that BPA, after it has leached into food or drink, has been found in animal studies to mimic hormones in the endocrine system. There is a seven class system for plastics in the United States. Polycarbonate plastics fall into the “Other” category and have a recycling label 7 on the bottom. However, because #7 labeling is the “other” category, not all plastics marked #7 contain BPA. The only true way to know if an item contains BPA is to get the information from the manufacturer.

What`s silicone and where dose silicone come from?

It is a man-made polymer, but instead of a carbon backbone like plastic, it has a backbone of silicon and oxygen. (Note that I’m using two different words here: silicone is the polymer and silicon, spelled without the “e” on the end, is an ingredient in silicone.) Silicon is an element found in silica, i.e., sand, one of the most common materials on earth. However, to make silicone, silicon is extracted from silica (it rarely exists by itself in nature) and passed through hydrocarbons to create a new polymer with an inorganic silicon-oxygen backbone and carbon-based side groups. What that means is that while the silicon might come from a relatively benign and plentiful resource like sand, the hydrocarbons in silicone come from fossil sources like petroleum and natural gas. So silicone is a kind of hybrid material.

Silicone and BPA

Before we really get into BPA, lets discuss silicone. We get asked a lot about BPA and silicone- the rule of thumb to remember is that any product that is 100% silicone is BPA Free. BPA (bisphenol A) is used in the making of plastics, it is not used in the making of silicone, so any products that is 100% silicone; silicone replacement nipples, silicone bottles, silicone teether, etc…, are BPA Free. Whether or not they say BPA free on the packaging, is irrelevant, as long as the product is made of 100% silicone and has no other

parts made of different materials, you can rest assured that the product is BPA free. 

National Toxicology Program at the National Institutes of Health Opinion:

“Although there is no direct evidence that exposure of people to bisphenol A adversely affects reproduction or development, studies with laboratory rodents show that exposure to high dose levels of bisphenol A during pregnancy and/or lactation can reduce survival, birth weight, and growth of offspring early in life, and delay the onset of puberty in males and females. Recognizing the lack of data on the effects of bisphenol A in humans and despite the limitations in the evidence for “low” dose effects in laboratory animals, the possibility that bisphenol A may impact human development cannot be dismissed. More research is needed.”

Source: National Institutes of Health, National Toxicology Program. 14 April. 2008. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. 29 April. 2008.