This is also the reason we do ourselves a disservice if we do not at least try to eliminate all possible sources of bioavailable Lead from our lives — Leaded dishes; Leaded toys, old Lead-painted doors, windows, siding, or other architectural components, stained glass, Leaded crystal; Leaded brass; old Leaded solder; Leaded sports equipment Leaded bullets; Leaded fishing weights; uncoated Lead diving weights, etc.
As always, thank you for reading and for sharing Lead Safe Mama posts. Your sharing of this work keeps us doing what we do. Please let me know if you have any follow-up questions to this and I will do my best to answer them personally as soon as I have a moment.
Your work is so amazing. I pray that child will be ok. I have a question regarding old Christmas ornaments from maybe 40 years, glass, shaped bells and round balls, etc. My gut feeling is that color coating is full of lead. I am rethinking of keeping these old things around. I am much more aware of every item I pick up because of your amazing work. Another one just he other day, colored metal stylus for a smart phone.
Mine I notice the color is rubbing off. I thought of buying a lead test swab to just check. Do you have any insights? It just seems everywhere. Thank you. Hi Mary — the Christmas ornaments are likely leaded, the stylus is likely not leaded. With vintage Christmas ornaments you have to evaluate if kids are going to touch and fidget with and hold them and how much interaction they will have.
With the glass balls I figure that the biggest hazard is if they break and you are going to clean them up really thoroughly if they break anyway — so I am not concerned about potential hazards since one is unlikely to let a small child play with them.
I have a greater concern for the little toy soldiers and other ornaments that look more like toys and that children are more likely to interact with like a toy. The effects of lead on development may not show up for years. Doctors will closely follow the development of children with lead exposure at all regular checkups.
Because there is no safe level for lead, try to protect kids from it. To help prevent lead poisoning:. Reviewed by: Mary L. Gavin, MD. Larger text size Large text size Regular text size. What Is Lead Poisoning? Who Is at Risk for Lead Poisoning? Kids also can come into contact with lead through: water that flows through old lead pipes or lead solder food stored in bowls glazed or painted with lead some old or imported toys, jewelry, pottery, and cosmetics.
Lead has also been found in some imported candies and herbs. Symptoms of lead poisoning include: loss of appetite feeling tired or irritable poor growth nausea and vomiting constipation stomach pain joint pain and muscle weakness headaches Rarely, very high lead levels can cause confusion, seizures, coma, and death. How Is Lead Poisoning Diagnosed?
How Is Lead Poisoning Treated? To help prevent lead poisoning: Ask your doctor about having your kids tested for lead exposure. Get your home checked for lead if it was built before Lead is one of the few natural substances that has no known use in the human body.
At even very low levels, lead has been shown to cause health problems. The difficulty with lead is that once it is mined from the earth, there is no known way to destroy or make it harmless.
This makes it extremely important that we reduce our use of lead and dispose of it properly. The good news about lead poisoning is that unlike many other diseases, it is a totally preventable disease. How Does Lead get into the Body? Most of the lead used today is inorganic lead and it enters the body through breathing inhalation and swallowing ingestion , which are called "routes of exposure".
Lead dust or particles cannot go through the skin if the skin is unbroken. The type of lead used in gasoline is organic lead and it can get through the skin. For small children, ingestion is the main route of exposure. For bridge workers and those working with leaded paint the main route of exposure is inhalation. However, lead dust can be ingested if it is on your hands and you smoke a cigarette or eat before washing your hands.
What Happens to Lead in the Body? Once lead gets into the body it is not used in any way to benefit the body. It is absorbed and distributed throughout the body. The amount the body absorbs depends on the route of exposure. People will absorb more lead if they are fasting or if their diet is lacking in iron or calcium. Large particles land in the upper respiratory tract where they get trapped by the mucous lining and are moved out by the cilia.
Unfortunately, the mucous is often swallowed, allowing these large particles to then go into the digestive system. Smaller particles can reach deeper in the lungs and from there be absorbed into the bloodstream. This means that when there is burning or welding on lead-painted surfaces, the lead fumes can be especially dangerous. The small particles created as a fume will reach the blood if they are inhaled. Once lead is in the blood, some of it moves into soft tissues organs such as the brain and kidneys.
The total amount of lead that is stored in the body is called the "body burden". Lead that is stored in the bones can leave them and enter the blood and then the soft tissue.
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