Don't worry baby girl, mama's learning how to be here for a long time
When I was pregnant with Cimorene, I became obsessed with making sure she had the best of everything. My inner consultant kicked into research overdrive. I learned about the toxicity of flame retardants in carseats, pesticide residues on kids clothing, chemical preservatives in baby wipes, the stuff they put in diapers to make them absorbent… holy crap mamas. As a new mom, my motto was better safe than sorry!
Did I overdo it? Probably. That’s kind of my thing.
BUT: it also made me start to think a lot more about what I put in, and on, my own body.
I’ve always been relatively health conscious, thanks to my own amazing mama who has worked at a cooperatively owned health-food store since I was maybe 6 years old. I got even more health conscious after my super-fun ER trip, and eating healthy is part of my 2020 goal to take exceptionally good care of myself. But my health journey now isn’t just focused on food, it’s focused on anything that goes into or on my body. In the last few years I’ve taken a hard look at my makeup, toothpaste, shampoo, vitamins, clothing, sheets… yup. All of it.
I can just hear some mamas now thinking “Oh great, more things to worry about. I don’t have the time or energy to start thinking about all that.” Hold up! While much of the time I’m sharing funny stories about my kids, or talking about how to navigate the stresses of mamahood, at the root of all of this is how we can be good to mama. And taking care of my health by detoxing my life – and I don’t mean a juice cleanse – is a huge, huge, HUGE way that I’ve been good to mama.
I’ll dive deeper into each of these in future posts, but here’s a quick summary of what I’ve been thinking about the last few years.
What I put IN my body. Food, liquid, and air. I’ve gotten really focused on the nutritional profile of the things that I eat, and where it all comes from. I’m much more conscious of the quality of the water I drink, and anything that I drink that isn’t water (don’t worry mamas, I still have a glass of wine now and then!). Regarding air there are obvious ones (I don’t smoke) and less obvious ones, like I noticed that when we rented older apartments with dust or mildew issues, I didn’t breathe well.
What I put ON my body. Lotion, sunscreen, makeup, clothing… if it touches me, it counts. There are some organizations and companies out there with great resources that I’ll talk about, and then I’ll share some of the specific things I don’t use anymore and what I’ve replaced them with. Some are on the “better safe than sorry” list, and some are based in pretty solid scientific research.
Remember how I defined health for myself in 2020? It’s not just about not getting sick, it’s about taking care of myself in a way that means I’ll be here for many, many, many more years. That means stacking the deck in my favor against the things that come with getting older – cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, type II diabetes, osteoporosis, you get the idea. I didn’t know this until recently, but women are more likely than men to suffer from most of these. And it’s no longer fringe woo-woo science that ties many of these diseases to nutrition and common chemicals, it’s stuff that’s published in the NIH and JAMA (two highly respected sources for scientific and medical research). In sum: a big thank you to Cimorene for unintentionally starting me down this path, because it means I might have more years to spend watching her and her brother grow.