Hey Mommy, if you're going to breastfeed, can you at least put down the baby long enough to get your roots done?
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Momlogic's Momstrosity: It's
been a couple years since I was
breastfeeding my baby. Maybe the rules have changed? I was at the
hair salon last week getting a
haircut, and the woman next to me was getting
her color done. Nothing wrong with that -- except while the woman
was having massive amounts of hair dye brushed onto her hair, she
was simultaneously nursing
a baby.
I don't even like to take my toddler into a nail salon because of the fumes, and here is this woman, hair all ablaze in foil strips, giving her child nutrients while chemicals are being absorbed into her skin. Yeah, I know that getting any time to yourself when you are a new mother is a b---- . You don't have time to shower, shave your legs ... been there, done that.
But shouldn't you at least unlatch your kid during a routine salon visit?
OK, I'm no doctor, so I thought I'd ask one. OB/GYN Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz put it to me this way: "Hair dye and roots dye has far greater opportunity to get into the blood supply sitting on mom's scalp, and then theoretically into many body tissues and fluids such as breast milk. This is incredibly difficult to study, and it is extremely hard to document any potential harm to mom or baby, but a great opportunity to rethink elective exposures we subject not only our kids to, but also ourselves."
Ultimately, Dr. Gilberg-Lenz thinks we should all be looking at the big picture. "We seem pretty concerned about environmental hazards -- what about the crap we put directly on and in our bodies? Think about only putting on stuff you would actually eat or feed your kids." Hmm. Food for thought.
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz completed her undergraduate education at Wesleyan University and post-baccalaureate pre-med studies at Mills College. She earned her medical degree from the USC School of Medicine and has been in private practice for 9 years. She is the co-founder of Cedar Sinai Medical Center's Green Committee and lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.Read more: http://www.momlogic.com/2009/10/breastfeeding_hair_dye.php#ixzz0VCM4bMVk
