Strollerderby

Browse by Tags

• Pollution Causing Asthma Before Baby's Even Born

  A warning to all pregnant women: stay out of traffic.  A new study says traffic fumes will actually reprogram the DNA of an otherwise healthy fetus, paving the way for the child to be born asthmatic.  Scared? Me too. We've long known that pollution = bad for your health, and for pregnant women there's always that extra fear that what harms her harms her baby as well. But the idea of DNA being reprogrammed whilst inside the body runs a bit too close to science fiction for my tastes. Read More... Posted Feb 16 2009, 01:30 PM by JeanneSager with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: health, pregnancy, medicine, environment, study, asthma, pollution, genes, Jeanne Sager, they say

• Are Pick-Up and Drop-Off Moms Killing the Environment?

  New York City is getting tough on going green. Their latest targets? Parents.  Moms and dads who leave their cars idling for more than one minute near New York City's public AND prive schools will be slapped with a $100 fine. Mark this on the calendar, because I don't say this much. Bravo Mayor Bloomberg. Now can we spread this around the country? Read More... Posted Feb 02 2009, 04:26 PM by JeanneSager with | with 14 comment(s) Filed under: new york city, education, cars, school, schools, environment, vehicles, green, pollution, school buses, Jeanne Sager, trucks, buses, nursery school, pick-up and drop-off, emissions, passenger vehicles

• PCBs Found in Air Near Several Schools

  "Most" of the air samples taken at 40 schools around Chicago were contaminated with PCB-11, says the Chicago Tribune.  Banned over 30 years ago, polychlorinated biphenyls are highly toxic and linked to diseases like cancer, liver and kidney damage. Though PCBs are known to linger in ecosystems, "bio-magnifying" in the fatty tissue of animals, researchers were surprised to find Read More... Posted Jan 22 2009, 04:00 PM by Shannon LC Cate with | with no comments Filed under: environment, children's health, school safety, toxic chemicals, pollution, PCBs, Shannon LC Cate

• Why They Shouldn't Eat the Snow

  Another one of our fondest childhood memories has lost its luster in 2008. Thought your kids were alright as long as they steered a wide berth around the yellow snow? Guess again. The Chicago Tribune has rounded up a series of experts to tell us exactly why we shouldn't send them out to fill a bowl with snow and dig in. Yeah, I wanted to call grinch on them too. Read More... Posted Dec 23 2008, 04:30 PM by JeanneSager with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: bacteria, lead poisoning, pollution, maple syrup, snow, Jeanne Sager, country life, childhood memories, winter fun, eating snow, acid rain

• Kids Exposed to Toxic Air Near Schools

  Would you want your kid to go to school next to a plastics plant? Some kids did, in the Cincinnati suburb of Addyston, Ohio. But the air quality outside the school was so toxic that officials shut the school down three years ago. According to an analysis by USA Today, that problem is far from isolated. Using computer modeling, the newspaper found 437 schools across the country that had air quality even worse than that at the school in Addyston. They cross referenced Environmental Protection Agency data on the likely path of toxic emissions from manufacturing plants with the location of schools. Read More... Posted Dec 08 2008, 02:19 PM by Amy Kuras with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: schools, USA Today, EPA, pollution, air quality, environmental toxins

• Pollution is as Bad for Kids as Secondhand Smoke

  Let's talk about ways to lower kids' IQs: one thing that works pretty well is smoking in utero, and another is exposing them to lead. And still another is simply living in a high traffic-pollution area. Ouch. Sad-but-true: kids living in high-traffic areas rife with pollution were measured IQ-wise, and the resultant IQ drops were consistent with those found in kids exposed to secondhand or in utero smoking or lead exposure. Read More... Posted Feb 16 2008, 12:34 PM by Karen Murphy with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: kids, urban living, IQ, cities, pollution, lead exposure, smoking in pregnancy

• The Milk Is Poison: Common Contaminant Bad For Nursing Infants

  Perchlorate is a commonly found industrial pollutant that is often present in water supplies, among other places. As it turns out, it also accumulates in breastmilk. It's more dangerous to nursing infants than was previously thought, notably since it blocks the ability of the thyroid and mammary glands to absorb iodide, which in turn is crucial for development of the central nervous system. "Babies who don't make enough of these thyroid hormones may become mentally impaired." Oh, is that all? Is your water contaminated?  Read More... Posted Dec 08 2007, 09:34 AM by Kelly Mills with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: research study, breastfeeding, poison, nursing covers, toxins, lactation, pollution, breastmilk

• The "Greenest" U.S. States: Is Yours One?

  So when are we all going to drive hybrids, no wait, ride our bikes everywhere? And eat local. And shut down the corporate polluters. And reduce our reliance on oil, foreign or domestic? Next year, maybe? Uh, maybe not. But in the meantime, you can rate your home state with other U.S. states in terms of "green"ness. And mock the states that rank lower than yours. But I'll bet you'll be surprised who made the top ten (though the bottom-dwellers probably already know who they are). Read More... Posted Nov 04 2007, 02:19 PM by Karen Murphy with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: environmentalism, pollution, "green", states, U.K..S. states, clean air, clean water

• Cough, Spew. Build Schools Next to Freeways

  Does it seem like a good idea to build schools close to freeways in the dirtiest city in America? Especially if those schools are for a population of kids who are already at risk for high rates of childhood asthma? Officials in the Los Angeles Unified School District seem to think so. They approved construction of seven new schools within 500 feet of the notoriously clogged LA freeways. Nearly 70 freeway-bordering schools already exist and serve some 60,000 kids and their formerly pink lungs. But LA isn't the only city where the school meets the traffic-jammed road.   Read More... Posted Sep 24 2007, 07:04 PM by Madeline Holler with | with no comments Filed under: school, los angeles, kids health, asthma attacks, pollution