The next on my list of most important chemicals to avoid during pregnancy is fairly broad, but increasing evidence shows the importance of reducing our fetuses’ exposure to this group of chemicals: pesticides and herbicides.

What Are Pesticides and Herbicides?

Most of us are exposed to a wide range of pesticides and herbicides daily. Pesticide residue lingers on non-organic fruits and vegetables, agricultural runoff leaves at least low levels of pesticides in many municipalities’ water supply, and we can be exposed to pesticides and herbicides in our yards if we use chemical insect- or weed-control.

Pesticides can have multiple dangerous effects on fetuses, especially in the developmental stages, when human babies are little bigger than insects themselves. A recently released study found that common levels of exposure to pesticides may have effects on developing fetuses similar to those associated with smoking — earlier birth and lower birth rates. As the Huffington Post reports: "Lanphear and his team calculated an average 150-gram reduction in baby birthweight (about one-third of a pound) and a half-a-week earlier welcome into the world when they compared the 15 percent of the women in the study with the highest exposure to the 15 percent studied who had the lowest exposure to organophosphate pesticides, as estimated from chemical byproducts in their urine. The high exposure women had 10 times the level of pesticide in their bodies as those in the low exposure group."

In another recent article, published on Truthout, writer Brian Moench points out that nearly all of us have some level of pesticides in our bodies, quoting a disturbing recent study that showed that every human tested had the world's most popular pesticide, Roundup, detectable in their urine at concentrations between five and 20 times the level considered safe for drinking water. He then draws parallels between research finding that pesticide exposure — designed to disrupt insects’ nervous systems — and rising autism rates — a complex disorder of the central nervous system.

The herbicide atrazine is frequently found in municipal water supplies, particularly in the Midwest during the spring when farmers and lawn care workers are using the chemical on crops and yards. Atrazine got nationwide exposure a couple of years ago when 43 water systems in six states sued atrazine’s manufacturer, Syngenta, to pay to remove the chemical from drinking water. As we discussed in this blog in 2010, atrazine is linked to birth defects, and the National Resources Defense Council estimates that 75 percent of stream water and 40 percent of groundwater samples from agricultural areas contain atrazine. The EPA limits atrazine levels in municipal water to a 12-month average of 3 parts per billion, but some say that is still too high, particularly for the health of developing fetuses. You can obtain local water contaminant reports from your municipality to find out about your water’s levels of atrazine. The good news is that atrazine can be filtered out by carbon filters, so attaching one to your sink is a good way to protect yourself (I don’t recommend storing drinking water in plastic — a topic I'll discuss in greater depth in an upcoming post).

To Avoid Pesticides and Herbicides

Eat only organic fruits and vegetables. I know this can cost extra, but it’s wise during pregnancy to choose organic to avoid pesticide residue. If your pregnancy is spanning the spring and summer, it's good news for eating organic. You can grow some of your own food in your yard or in a community garden, and organic veggies are more readily (and cheaply) available via farmer's markets or CSA (community-supported agriculture) programs. If you are on a limited budget, use the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen/Clean Fifteen list to help you choose conventionally grown produce with the fewest pesticide residues. Use a carbon water filter to help remove pesticide and herbicide residues from drinking water. And finally, do not use any chemical pesticides or herbicides on your yard. If you use a yard service, choose one well-versed in sustainable, chemical-free yard maintenance methods.

Being pregnant seems to lead to a lot of restrictions, from what we put in our bodies to what we surround ourselves with. Sometimes reading the plethora of online lists of things to watch out for during pregnancy can be incredibly overwhelming. It's important that we learn to prioritize the things that are most potentially harmful for us and our babies so we don't become overly stressed. To that end, I'm writing a series of posts on what I consider the five most important chemicals to avoid during pregnancy. The first of those is bisphenol-A or BPA, an endocrine disruptor found in plastics and canned food linings.

What is BPA?

I’ve already written fairly extensively about avoiding BPA here as well as in my guest blog on Care2, but I believe this is the No. 1 most important chemical to eliminate from your body before, during and after pregnancy. BPA (bisphenol-A) is a potent estrogen mimicker, meaning it can disrupt our bodies’ vital endocrine systems, damaging the reproductive system, causing low sperm counts, cancers and more. Our endocrine systems help control our hormones, which are crucial to the healthy development of babies. Because it's extremely ubiquitous, nearly all of us are exposed to at least some level of BPA. But research shows that even small amounts of BPA can damage fetal development. And babies are often highly exposed to this chemical after birth, because it is found in #7 plastics, which are commonly used to make bottles and sippy cups, as well as the liners of infant formula cans.

You can find numerous studies to associate BPA exposure with a variety of developmental problems. A recent study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison found that early exposure to BPA created results similar to developmental exposure to mercury — adult fish that had been exposed to even tiny amounts of BPA as embryos has learning and memory problems, and experienced profound behavioral changes not only immediately after hatching, but also in adulthood. The scientist who conducted the study, Daniel Weber, said, “What was amazing is that exposure only happened at the embryonic stage, but somehow the wiring in the brain had been permanently altered by it.” 

Another recent study by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention measured BPA levels in the urine of mothers at various times in their pregnancy and found that the mothers with higher BPA levels during pregnancy tended to have 3-year-old girls with more anxious and depressed behavior, as reported by Today. The article also quotes Shanna Swan, a professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, who says the study supports a growing body of evidence that BPA can affect brain development in the womb.

How to Avoid BPA

Do not drink beverages from or store food in plastic containers, in particular #7 plastic (to be safe, I avoid all plastic food storage and beverage containers). Do not eat canned foods. Nearly all canned foods contain high levels of BPA in the lining. Choose foods stored in glass jars instead. (Eden Foods is one of the only brands that has BPA-free canned food.) After your baby is born, do not use plastic bottles or sippy cups (opt instead for glass or stainless steel like these from Klean Kanteen — even BPA-free plastic can leach endocrine-disrupting chemicals, research has found). And do not feed babies canned infant formula. If you are unable to breast feed, choose dry-pack formula containers instead.

This week's post looks back on a feature of Dan Phillips, one of the most interesting people we've ever met, and one who also stars in my recently released book Housing Reclaimed. Dan is the founder of The Phoenix Commotion, a group in Huntsville, Texas, that makes unbelievably fascinating homes almost entirely out of reclaimed material otherwise destined for the landfill. I first encountered Dan when we did a Q&A with him back in 2009. The biggest problem with my interview with Dan was whittling down all the amazing information he provided in his ingenious yet down-home way. It's difficult to fit anything into the space you've allotted when you get someone who gives you 20 quotes like this:

My wildest dream is to see the melding of the unbelievable technology at our fingertips with “homespun” and on-site strategies — a new toolbox, as it were — to leave the smallest footprint possible with no loss of quality of life. There are primitive pleasures in “chopping our own wood,” and “hauling our own water” — pleasures we haven’t been privy to for a century. And there are thrilling pleasures in the technology that is currently galloping through our lives. My wildest dream is that we are smart about our arrogance and humble about the opportunities the planet has provided. We can re-sensitize synapses that have long ago atrophied. There’s still time. And I want to be a part of that.    

Dan is a rare breed: eloquent and intellectual, incredibly well-read and artistic. At the same time, he is about as down-to-earth a Texan as you're ever going to find. And, almost unbelievably, his houses are just as fascinating as he is. Phillips started the Phoenix Commotion after he'd owned a reclaimed building materials store (after many years as a dance professor at nearby Sam Houston State University). He saw that people were throwing away enough stuff to create at least one small home every day, and he decided to try to actually convert that stuff into houses. Dan collects what others would consider trash — damaged lumber, broken tiles, beer-bottle caps, wine corks, DVDs, rubber bands and tennis balls, just to name a few — and, with a team made up of untrained workers, volunteers and the future homeowner — creates beautiful, customized, sometimes fantastical homes for low-income families and artists. He's gotten a lot of press, such as this article in The New York Times, and he's given a TED talk. If you want to read much, much more about Dan, check out my book, Housing Reclaimed, which came to be thanks to inspirational groups and people such as Phoenix Commotion and Dan Phillips. 

With this post, I am excited to be joining a huge online community of bloggers. The reason? I am pregnant and expecting my first child this summer! Of course, as editor of Natural Home & Garden, I'm concerned about making sure my baby's home environment is safe and healthy. But, I am also confident that I have a huge advantage in planning for that healthy life as I pull upon the many years of back issues of the magazine and all the amazing companies I've come to know over the years. But, despite that, shopping for eco-friendly and healthy baby materials isn't easy for any of us, particularly when we're on a budget. That's why I will be sharing my adventures in baby shopping as we move toward my early-August due date.

This week, I am digging into the archives, revisiting all the amazing homes we've featured in the past 10-plus years of Natural Home & Garden. I chose one that's special to me: the first home feature I ever worked on as a Natural Home & Garden staff member when we obtained the magazine from its former publisher in 2005.

It's a coincidence that this was the house in my first issue, because it's right up my alley. I love the 1940s park ranger feeling the tower-home evokes, and the views from this place are absolutely incredible. It's made of reclaimed materials, a fascination of mine that spawned my recent book, Housing Reclaimed. But what I love most about this house isn't its hefty list of green features and its fantastic design. It's the way this home weaves in and out of the life of its owner, Glenda Kaser Alm (who wrote the article).  

One of my favorite things about the homes we choose for the magazine and featured in my book is that they aren't just possessions of the homeowner — they're active participants in the homeowner's life. For Glenda, this house was the fulfillment of a dream. She told her dad she'd own a fire lookout tower-house when she was a young girl, and she made good on the promise to herself 50 years later. And Glenda's son, an architect, drew the initial sketches for her. The home ties Glenda to her past, to her father and her son. 

Modeled after historic structures in her area, the house also ties Glenda to the region where she lives. The impeccable views ensure she's connected with the cycles of nature in the surrounding forest. And the house weaves in and out of her present and future, too. Glenda met her long-term partner, Dick, while working on the house (Dick owns the solar shop where Glenda bought the system that powers the house). In my mind, when a home ties you to your past and to the earth and ushers you into a wonderful new future, it is a home worth living in 

I saw an interesting post on Inhabitat about research by the nonprofit firm Terreform Institute for Advanced Urban Research. Terreform has been considering ways to make New York city entirely self-sufficient as part of a plan called New York City Steady State (NYCSS). During the project, NYCSS collected intense data on the city's supply and demand, and created a plan that relies heavily on urban farming on many of the skyline's rooftops. In Times Square, solar panels would provide shade and the famous LED billboards would be tucked among vertical gardens.

(Click here to see before-and-after photos of many of New York's famous spaces.)

The NYCSS goal was to create an alternative master plan for the city's future that included self-reliance in areas such as food, energy, water, waste, air quality, manufacture, employment, culture, health and transport. At the end of the study, the organization hoped to compile an inventory of best practices that would be relevant to cities around the world. 

 
In the most recent issue of Natural Home & Garden, we profiled a group taking one step toward this more self-sufficient New York City: Eagle Street Rooftop Farm. Here, on a 6,000-square-foot rooftop farm in Brooklyn, more than 30 kinds of produce feed volunteers and staff, provide for a community supported agriculture (CSA) program, and help teach school and community groups about urban farming.

Urban farming has a future. In a groundbreaking study conducted at The Urban Design Lab at Columbia University in 2011, researchers concluded that:

• Rooftops are a vast, underused resource that could be transformed for food production.

• Bureaucratic challenges are a major barrier to the expansion of urban farming.

• Urban farmers are establishing viable businesses by taking advantage of multiple revenue streams.

• Existing green roof incentive programs have not been designed to support rooftop agriculture.

• The skills and experience being developed by today’s rooftop farming pioneers will likely make wider adoption much more feasible in the near future.

• Urban agriculture functions as a catalyst for larger food system transformations.

• Were New York City to foster more urban agriculture, it would benefit from stormwater mitigation, soil remediation and energy-use reduction.

'Tis the season to start garden seeds indoors! We can save tons of money by starting garden seeds indoors to transplant into our spring gardens. Most seeds require a few weeks to grow before it's time to set them out. Considering we're a few weeks out from the last spring frost date in many parts of the country, now's the time to start those early seeds.

This morning I went on the news here at one of our local stations (you can watch the video here) to talk about starting a spring garden. I shared the information about starting seeds indoors from the current issue of Natural Home and Garden — which provides a planting guide worksheet that will tell you when to start seeds and plant seedlings all season long (read the article to learn how to use it). On the news show, I also talked about using biodegradable seed-starting pots. I didn't have time to discuss or demonstrate this in the 3-minute news segment, but another very cheap and easy way to use biodegradable seed-starting pots is to make them yourself out of newspaper.

Making a newspaper seed-starting pot is unbelievably easy. Essentially, you just fold a piece of newspaper in half, roll it around a soda can and then tuck in the ends on one side to form a bottom. Voila! Instant, plantable seed-starting pot. Blogger Mr. Brown Thumb gives more detailed instructions on his blog here, as well as instructions to create seed-starting pots out of old cardboard toilet paper rolls.

If you want to make a bit more sophisticated newspaper pots, you can buy the handy dandy seed-pot maker from Uncommon Goods, which is pictured.   

Need another adorable seed-starting pot option (and one that's a great craft to do with kids and will also provide you with omelet makings)? Make eggshell starter pots we featured a few years ago. We wrote the article about growing herbs, but you can start any seeds in eggshells then plant them directly into the ground.