Lead Source

If you've been reading the blog you know that Pequita had an elevated lead level at her 9 month pediatric appointment - she was one point above 'acceptable normal range'. We were surprised and upset. We have been removing obvious possible exposure sources from the house, busying ourselves and our friends with stripping some furniture and generally obsessing about her toys, many of which are not German-made wooden beauties stained with food-grade dyes. I bought lead tests to check what may be lead rich, and removed a few things from the house. In researching cheaper, bulk packs of home lead tests I read that you can use them to test bathtubs. Hmmmm, thought I. We live in an old house we're renovating, and bathe the babies in the clawfoot tub we were thrilled to salvage from the original house. The enamel was slightly pocked in places, but it was still nice and usable. In an attempt to clean 70 years of hard water off the tub, my mother used a product (link here) that further ate the enamel off the tub, but made it nice and white. We figured that the slightly rougher bottom was actually for the better as it would act as a helpful non-skid surface for the kids.

So last Thursday night I used my last lead test to check the upstairs bathtub for lead on a whim. Here are the instructions (note second bullet point): And here is the tub, with a toy for color reference: There are 3 places I dabbed the test fluid, and this dark intense color was achieved immediately upon chemical meeting tub surface. When I tested other toys or furniture that had lead paint on it, the test took sometimes a full minute to register a blushing pink. Sheee-it. We've been bathing our babies in lead soup for their whole lives. The guilt is as intense as the darkness of the tell-tale fuchsia color of the test. We are grateful that we never made a bath a part of our bedtime ritual - Pequita has been much more frequently spot-cleaned or taken into the shower with us than allowed to play in the tub, but still, she's had a tubby one or two times a week for twelve months. Monito has only had a handful of tubbies, since he's been so small and floppy that the baby tub is safer and easier. However, now when I look at the beautiful pictures like this I am not going to remember just the lovely bonding time.

There are many articles and much information about the effects of lead levels on children, and it has been proven to cause decreased IQ and also emotional difficulties. One study from 2003 released by the NEJAM showed that prolonged elevated blood lead levels lowered a child's IQ by an average of 7.4 points. Now any loss is bad, but I'm relieved - 7.4 points lower on the IQ scale is not going to keep her out of university.

She will be one year old next Thursday on October 11th, and we have a 12-month pediatric checkup scheduled for the day after. I annoyed the nurses at the doc's office by insisting that we [A] want to have a venipuncture done at the hospital instead of the less accurate finger-stick in the office (because we expect the lead level to be higher, and I think it is worth the extra pain and agony - and it is agony for all of us to have her stuck with a needle - to get the most accurate reading possible) and [B] that we do the test this past Friday BEFORE next week's appt with the doctor so we'll have the labs back when we meet with him. This just seems prudent and well thought out to me, and saves me a co-pay and return visit since they would have checked at the appointment and we'd have had to return to have the 'oh-my-god, what-do-we-do-now' discussion. I want a baseline from which to monitor this closely. Now that we've found the source of her exposure, we can expect it to go down, but how much & how fast I have no idea.

Note to parents of young children: ask before the first phlebotomist sticks your child if they are the most experienced person available to draw blood from a baby. Pequita's first tech failed to get a vein and we had to calm her down enough to allow the second person - this time brought down from the peds ward - to try again on her other arm. We were pleased that she let them have the full force of her wrath at top volume. If our hearts were going to break putting her through this process twice, then they bloody well better suffer a bit too. We took her out for ice cream on the way home to cheer everyone up.

Homestead Mama and I were in those tubbies too, and will have to get our levels checked too. We're breastfeeding, and lead loves to adhere to nice fatty milk and be passed on to your child.

I just deleted a string of curses, but be creative when you imagine what swears *you'd* insert here.