Kevin Schwartz - BabySafe in Seven Steps: The BabyGanics Guide to Smart and Effective Solutions for a Healthy Home

The information and advice presented in this book are not meant to replace or substitute for the advice of your familys physicians and other trained health care professionals. You are advised to consult with health care professionals with regard to all matters pertaining to you and your familys health and well-being.

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A Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Original

Copyright 2014 by Kevin Schwartz, Keith Garber, and Samantha Rose

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books,
an imprint of Random House,
a division of Random House LLC, New York,
a Penguin Random House Company.

B ALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

L IBRARY OF C ONGRESS C ATALOGING-IN -P UBLICATION D ATA
Schwartz, Kevin.
Babysafe in seven steps: the babyganics guide to smart and effective solutions for a healthy home / Kevin Schwartz, Keith Garber, Samantha Rose.
p. cm
ISBN 978-0-345-54712-5 (paperback)
eBook ISBN 978-0-345-54713-2 (ebook)
1. Child rearingSafety measures. 2. Home accidentsPrevention.
I. Garber, Keith. II. Title.
RJ61.S393 2014
649.1dc23 2014002108

www.ballantinebooks.com

v3.1_r1

Every new parent knows the feeling. You come home with your impossibly tiny baby and are overwhelmingly aware of his or her vulnerability. Fortunately, the more we learn about our babys development, the more empowered we are and knowledgeable about how best to protect them and help them thrive.

Keeping your child healthy actually starts in utero. Your baby is most vulnerable during the first trimester, when all his major organs are developing. This is the time to start thinking about making your home baby-safe. Then once you bring her home, the work continues. Babies large surface-to-body-mass ratio (i.e. lots of skin on a small body) means they truly are more likely than adults to absorb harmful substances from their indoor and outdoor environments. So all of us, from professionals to parents, have a responsibility to educate ourselves about how to create an ideal baby-safe environment and to apply that education mindfully, consciously, and joyfully!

From the moment you make the life-changing decision to bring a baby into your world (or better yet, from the moment you find out he or she is on the way), its important to start thinking about how you clean, what you eat, and what kind of air you breathe. As an allergist and pediatrician for the past twenty years, I spend as much time talking to parents about the many ways to keep their babies healthy and safe as I do treating kids once they are sick, and the wisdom and practical advice found in this go- to guide are exactly the kind I want all of the parents of my little patients to have. Kevin and Keith have dedicated their lives to creating personal care and household products that give parents valuable peace of mind. With this book, they take the next natural step, advising parents further about healthy lifestyle choices that will have a positive impact on their babies livesevery coo, smile, crawl, and step along the way. Heres to a baby- safe world!

Morris Nejat, MD

medical director, New York Allergy and Sinus Centers

assistant clinical professor of Pediatrics, New York University Medical School

instructor in Pediatrics, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons

medical director, babyganics

You see it every hour, every day. Your baby is constantly exploring her world. (Your world!) Touching, tasting, sensing, and discovering the world is his full-time job. This early exploration happens in the bath when her eyes light up as she watches with wonder as bubbles pop and she delights in the power of the splash. It happens when your baby picks up a new toya rock, a Cheerio, a dog brush!and he discovers it in his own way by touching and, yes, tasting it.

This seemingly random exploration is not only magical and fun to watch, but its also incredibly important for your babys physical, mental, and emotional health (have you noticed how freakin happy each new discovery makes her?). As parents we all want to encourage this natural curiosity and give our babies the freedom to learn, grow, and thrive. To do this, our babies need a safe environment, right? A baby-safe environment. Nothing drastic or confiningwere not talking about building a bubble around your new baby. We know as well as you do that you cant insulate your baby from everything. As a parent, youre naturally protective, but youre also realistic, right? You simply want to create a clean and healthy home where your baby can, well, do what babies do! What were talking about is creating safety not just for safetys sake but for the sake of your babys freedomthe freedom to satisfy his natural curiosity and happy exploration. The reality is that your baby will put his toes in his mouth, lick the table, and go out in the sun. Shell get shampoo in her eyes, probably eat out of the dog bowl (at least once!), and play in the mud. Hey, things happen. Life happens. We get it. Were parents, too.

Were Kevin and Keith, the founding fathers of babyganics, and we believe passionately in the freedom of babies to be babies. As dads ourselves, weve had the great fortune of seeing the world through our babies eyes. They experience it so naturally as a wondrous place, full of excitement and novelty, bursting with new opportunities to grow and learn. This 360-degree view of our babies world has helped us create products to make your worldinside and out, including everything that touches your baby and that your baby touchesas baby-safe and healthy as possible. Thats a parents most important job, isnt it? Thats why we think its our most important job as well.