But this is also true that products can be labeled organic in the skincare industry that helped beauty industry and it means absolutely nothing.

There's no like there's they can really label whatever they want all natural, organic, whatever they want to put on the label. And it's just meaningless. So I tell people ignore the front label. Just turn it over and look at ingredients, because that's the only way you're going to know the takeaway in this cynical little rant I'm going on is that when you're living in the United States, the bottom line is your government isn't going to do this for you. You have to take greater responsibility for your health care period. That's all it means. There are bills, there are federal bills that have been waiting for votes for years to start to ban. chemicals that we know are unsafe. We have over 85,000 chemicals approved for use in our personal care and household products in this country. Less than 200 have been tested for safety.

I'm Cynthia Overgard, owner of HypnoBirthing of Connecticut, childbirth advocate and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Podcast. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

Hi, I'm Carly Hertwig. I am a new mom. I had my daughter at home back in April. And my full time gig is I work in a school for students of special needs. I'm a behavior analyst. But my part time gig is that I am a fertility awareness educator who will be certified in the very near future. And also as a holistic reproductive health practitioner. And I have a huge passion for helping, especially women see that it's easy and not as difficult as they think it is to start to clean up their personal care products and live a more kind of holistic minded lifestyle. So you have a fabulous Instagram page called Thank you clean living with Carly. Carly. Yeah, so catchy. But no, it's cute. And it's very helpful. And people need to know about this. So can you just begin by telling us what prompted you to get so excited and passionate about endocrine, endocrine health and what living means?

Well, as most people who are in this place, it started with my own health journey. Honestly, it's been over a decade now. So I was in my 20s. And I was feeling not right, I knew that something was off. I was on hormonal birth control at the time, but like, just something was going on with my body. And unfortunately, my primary care physician doubted that she ran a few tests and everything was fine. You know, she looked at TSH and at my full thyroid because I was really convinced there's something going on with my thyroid health. And I, I was just continued to be gaslighted. And no one was leaving me. So I sought out a second opinion from a functional medicine practitioner. And she completely changed my life. We did really thorough testing, and it turned out that I had a pretty insane hormone imbalance. So I was in my mid 20s. And I had the hormone imbalance of a postmenopausal woman, which was pretty scary, because you know, I'm young, but I'm thinking like, well, someday I might want kids like, what does this even mean? I had hypothyroidism. And I was dealing with heavy metal toxicity, which I never really even heard of. So I started working with her. And she opened my eyes to the fact that not only what I eat is affecting me, but the things that I put on my body are affecting my health. And I had no idea up until that point.

You're talking skincare products, makeup, absolutely even like my cleaning products, my candles, things like that. So I kind of started doing a deep dive. And my personality is such where when I find something out, I want to research it as much as I can and just learn everything. So I kind of started doing a deep dive and the things that I learned about, you know, our, our FDA regulations here in the US or maybe like lack thereof, and the way that chemicals can get absorbed into our body and mess with our hormones and do crazy things. It was one of those things where I couldn't unlearn what I learned. And then it just became this huge passion project. And then a couple of years ago, when my school was down at the beginning of pandemic, I had a lot of time on my hands and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna start sharing this with people because they need to know like we're focused on our health right now. So let's talk about it.

So let's start with the regulations and the FDA. Let's let's start by informing people about that. I remember when I was very young how FDA approved was meaningful to me. And now I'm just like, oh, you know, it's all politics. It's so many. There's so many deeply unethical things got going on. And even as far as their approvals are, their standards are so low or non existent. What does it even mean? I mean, when you buy a totally safe, natural product, and it said, this has not been reviewed by the FDA, I'm like, bring it.

Yeah, I bought it. I don't care what it is. Yeah. Well, unfortunately, we can't just walk into Target or CVS or even Whole Foods and just grab something off the shelf, that it's safe. I mean, absolutely. How many of us have just gone in the store to grab a product, some sunscreen for? And we just assume that because it's for infants, it's going to be safe,

right? Absolutely diverse. It's crazy.

I want to mention something else that I care really greatly about. And before we get into the conversation about the FDA, I have to make sure we've never mentioned this on the podcast before. And I'm sure it's something you know about. But this is just sickening. To me. Honestly, if there was a law passed, I believe it was in the late 90s. I know John McCain was one of three senators on the bill, it is unlawful for a regular everyday person, like a Whole Foods employee. If they made it unlawful for any natural company to be allowed to claim it can actually heal you in any way. That's a lot in this country where we're supposed to have free speech, even with postpartum suits. Like it's like supports healing benefits that you cannot just say things that benefit you. So if you go to Whole Foods with a cold and say I have a cold what natural remedies do have you? Well, here's you'll see how nervous they get. Yeah, saying, Well, I'm not allowed to tell you any of these will cure your cold. But many people like to buy this and many people choose this. Yeah. But they can totally flout it with any random pharmaceutical, right. And we're one of two countries in the world where pharmaceuticals can have commercials on television. So this country is not only pro pharma, but the targeted directive of the past couple of decades has been and this is through Washington as well. It's suppressed any natural company absolutely is keep getting sicker and sicker. Alright, let's talk about the FDA.

Well, really quickly postpartum sweet was amazing. By the by I absolutely loved it. But yeah, and what's crazy is like, so they they took away that power of like natural, more more holistic products. But then here we have products that can greenwash us or make us think that they're safer than they are and cleaner than they are environmentally friendly. I mean, dog dish soap is one of the best ones. What does it have on its on its label a kilo baby duck. And it's like the worst for the environment. So it's funny that they, you know, they regulated that natural, more holistic kind of product line. But then companies can literally claim whatever they want on labels of conventional products, they can tell you that their fragrance is all natural, but because of the fragrance loophole, they can have literally any combination of more than 3000 ingredients. And they don't have to tell you what it is. Right. Describe the fragrance loophole? Let's Yeah.

So basically, companies don't have to disclose what's in their fragrance. And whether that's synthetic ingredients or natural ingredients. There's this loophole because companies watch all right, Terry blends, right? They don't want you to copy what they're doing. And what I tell people is it can feel overwhelming at first like I feel like a doom state, kind of like Instagram profile sometimes because I'm like, telling people things like, hey, the FDA hasn't passed a major law regulating our personal care industry since 1938 1938. We've had some small ones, right, like looking at like, you know, Hawaii ban certain sunscreens and there's some states that are starting the process of banning known carcinogens, which can right now be in our products, things like endocrine disrupting chemicals, which havoc on our bodies and our hormones, and I can definitely talk about that more, but we're seeing little tiny pockets, but major federal law. It's been we're coming up on a century here pretty soon, which is just insane to me. And, and I think people like you said, Trisha, like they go into stores and they think, okay, it's, it's gonna be safe. It's sold here, right? It's sold in a store. It's sold at Target, it told her to grocery store, but the FDA doesn't actually safety test any of our personal care products with the exception of sunscreen. They do regulate sunscreen differently because it's considered a drug. But still, I mean, let's be real. We found benzene a known carcinogen in sunscreen for a year now. Yeah, they're totally toxic even the ones for babies are completely toxic, so they're not doing a great job not every sense being company is toxic, but all the major ones are extremely toxic and you don't want to put anything toxic on your skin because organ and anything on your skin ends up getting absorbed into your bloodstream.

And what's crazy is the FDA has said like chemical sunscreens, we know they enter our body. They can stay in our bloodstream for weeks, but they haven't done anything about that yet. Right? They're testing like they move slow is you know We know him we've absolutely moved. But the problem is, it's just so political because we have the lobbying power of so many big corporations. And that's what it comes down to. There are bills, there are federal bills that have been waiting for votes for years to start to ban. chemicals that we know are unsafe, we have over 85,000 chemicals approved for use in our personal care and household products in this country, less than 200 have been tested for safety. So when you go into the store, and you pick something up for you know, your infant, and you're thinking, Oh, this has been tested, not unless the company does their own testing. And let me tell you, as someone who contacts companies weekly, asking them what their testing protocols are third party testing protocols for contaminants for heavy metals, right? Nobody can give me answers. It's very rare that companies are doing their own testing, and the FDA isn't doing it either. So who's keeping us safe, right. And the other crazy thing with personal care products is the FDA can't mandate recalls. So you know, like we see recalls all the time in food, there was just mostly just one for organic strawberries, right, like Hepatitis A or something. And then a week before that there was a recall of lettuce for salmonella. They don't have that power in the personal care industry. So years ago, when asbestos, a known carcinogen was found in Johnson and Johnson's baby powder, and Claire's, you know, that store them all Claire's, like their products marketed towards little girls. Yeah, I've got my ears pierced when I was kid. What did they find? They found asbestos. Because we're using tell they're using talc, which is a safe ingredient. But it can be contaminated with asbestos. And now they're Johnson or Johnson or Claire's for doing any testing. And so here we have these products with asbestos in them, and the FDA can't even pull them off the shelves. Like, it is just so wild. Why can't they?

They don't have the they don't have that ability. They don't have there's no recall power in and this is also true that products, correct me if I'm wrong. But this is also true that products can be labeled organic in the skincare industry might help beauty industry and me absolutely nothing. Like the natural beauty section. Yeah, it's the same.

Yeah, there's no like there's they can really label whatever they want all natural, organic, clean, safe, whatever they want to put on the label. And it's just meaningless. So I tell people ignore the front label. Got to just turn it over and look at ingredients because that's the only way you're going to know.

So what is it that's in these products that's so harmful to us? What are the main things?

Well, I mean, carcinogens is a pretty obvious one. I think most of us would like to avoid cancer causing ingredients. But I think one of the even more scary ones for me, especially for men and women who are planning for a family would be endocrine disrupting chemicals. And it's, it's hard because they're in everything. But basically, we know, without a doubt, and we have studies to show this right? This isn't like some hippy woowoo thing. This is this is real science. And there are studies to show it. But endocrine disrupting chemicals, can they consider the increase or decrease the production of hormones in our bodies, they can mimic hormones, so they can mimic estrogen. And then our body's like, oh, we have enough estrogen. We don't have to make estrogen anymore. Which is so freaking crazy.

Think that's how it happens. That's how it that's how it impacts fertility.

Yep. And that's how it leads to hormone imbalances. And as someone who's you know, working in the field of hormone health, and let me just say when a chemical mimics estrogen, it doesn't work the same in your body. It's no, no, it's not like it's doing absolutely right. It's not real. But I it's interesting hearing with estrogen stone, right. And it's scary to me how prevalent hormone imbalances are becoming, especially estrogen dominance. Estrogen dominance is one of the most prevalent and it's because we have this like fake estrogen in our body, it can interfere with growth and development of your fetus when you're pregnant. We also know that it can impact development exposure in like childhood. And then I think the scariest thing for me, and unfortunately, I've seen infertility a lot in my life with friends and family members, and it just it crushes my soul. And I can't even imagine going through that. But there's a wonderful renowned epidemiologist named Dr. Shanna swan. She has a great book called come down. Highly recommend it. But she has a lot of published studies. And what she is predicting is that we will reach global infertility by 2045. Because we will have sperm count of zero.

Just we just interviewed a holistic fertility expert. She said the exact same thing. Yep.

And people think it's not real and I'm like, look at the studies it is and if that doesn't scare you, I don't care what you think you can think the government's give you a safe you can think the FDA is amazing. And but if that statistic doesn't make you feel something like, that's really concerning to me, we've seen our sperm count dropped by more than 59% since 1973. And men right now have 50% Less sperm and testosterone that their grandfathers had. And it's because in large part of endocrine disrupting chemicals, specifically, when we're talking about sperm health, things like Bailey's and bisphenol-S.

Yeah, let's go into the specifics of what the endocrine disruptors are, and where we most often encountered them.

So they can really be in anything, but a lot of times you're going to see, like, especially bisphenolS, I always tell people don't take receipts don't take receipts when you're out shopping, because that's like one of the most prevalent source of bisphenol exposure that we have. And yeah, paper receipts and all is the same as BPA. Yes.

And a lot of companies are now jumping on this, you know, oh, we're BPA free.

But is it the paper or the print on it? It's the paper. It's that stuff, you feel it on your hands after you touch receipts you can feel it? It's like what are what are people using right now more than ever wished we could talk about that hand sanitizer. sanitizer is actually making it so that the the smells can get into your bloodstream faster.

The hand sanitizer is such as I know, for those people who work in checkout, I know I think 1000 receipts a day and hand sanitizer labs, and I bet there's no way they're sharing this information right. Now, I think without much hand sanitizer on your skin, because some people are using it constantly. It just it just it makes me so sad when I walk into these places that like put them on the wall just there. They're offering it all the time everywhere. You might as well take the cap off of it and just drink it, just start drinking it because that's how much you end up with in your you wouldn't drink it and put it in your body. Then why are you putting this on your skin so much, but we've all been conditioned to fear the word germ and we're not told that this is killing germs and no one is saying Wait, how? Like what? What are you What if it's killing a germ that it's killing me in Loveland margin of scale? Right? People also don't understand that your skin is your largest organ. It's an it's an organ. It's like it's it's you put it on your skin. It's not a whole lot different than eating it.

Right? And it's just like it's killing the good bacteria too. And we have way more good bacteria on us and bad but system most of our immune so yes, we're digressing. I'm sorry about that. So let's go back. I want to bring you back to where you were because I jumped in like that. But receipt all receipts like we're talking Trader Joe's like all right.

Actually. Receipts I know,

I know. Like no, I do. I can't go to Trader Joe's anymore.

There are some stores that have gone bisphenol free. But okay, so but that's good to know. Okay. It's a huge

source. Yeah, say no, thank you. I don't need my receipt.

Yes, no, thank you. Another big source is aluminum cans. So the problem with aluminum cans is, you know, I think there are some companies that are starting to realize that people are starting to pay attention little by little baby steps. And so they're putting right on the label BPA free. You see that all the time, right? You also see it in plastic water bottles. While I'm here to tell you that BPA is not the only harmful bisphenol. So they might be taken out BPA, right? They're sneaky. Yes. And we don't know that that's safe either. So it's like, I know canned food is cheaper. I totally get it. But if we can, you know, just vary it. We don't need to maybe be eating canned food every single day. That's a huge way to just reduce our exposure to bisphenolS. I mean, I'm gonna have to open a lot of coconuts to get the coconut milk. I know my recipe. I know. I know. It's hard. But if it's organic, but if it's organic, does it net? Does organic coconut milk necessarily mean the can itself is safe?

No. Oh, not at all. I know. I'm sorry. Oh, very bad news.

This is exhausting. Right.

I know. And so, let's just make sure people understand what you mean by tin. You said 10. You said metal aluminum cans. Aluminum like okay, but it's also tin cans. So it's soda cans. It's sparkling water cans. Yeah, yeah. It's been canned. Yeah. All of those.

So maybe we don't try to eat that every single day. You know, are there any plans that are safe? I don't know of any that are BPA and BPS free unfortunately. Yeah, a lot of BPA free, which is great. But it's just it's again, it's that marketing and it makes you think like, oh, BPA free. I've started to hear about BPA. And actually, I just saw some breaking news yesterday that the FDA has agreed to revisit the safety of BPA.

Oh, they're gonna revisit it. I love it. We're gonna revisit it. Okay.

We'll see what happens and how long it takes and when one other thing I heard somewhere along the way you can tell me if this is true. Is that tomato are the worst because of the the assay. Right? Yeah, that's why they you often actually see boxed tomatoes. Yes. Yep. Because it promoted the leaching, right exactly like marinara sauce. or canned tomatoes, peeled tomatoes, crushed tomatoes. Yeah, in a Can you want to get a box version instead, they have a box version of, of cans, tomatoes, they have a bar as well. Good to know, another big, big one that I tell people is microwaving food in plastic. So anytime you heat up plastic, you are encouraging that leaching of things like faily Sprite. And so it can feel overwhelming. And I totally get that, you know, and some people, they choose to throw all of their conventional products in a box and take it to the curb and just kind of start that way. That's not how I've done this journey, because I don't have student loans. I have way too many degrees to say so and now I don't even want to work in education. But anyways, so what I've really done is like one thing at a time, but like then when you think about how powerful it can be to just stop microwaving food and plastic. I mean, I go to the store and I see potatoes wrapped in plastic that are meant to be microwaved. And I just like a scream about just getting rid of your microwave right in the microwave, honestly, 20 years ago made a lot of it. No one wants to hear that. But it does kill all the enzymes and food, it kills all the nutrients. And if you're gonna microwave vegetables to like, just eat a salad instead. And don't do that. Or can we just replace it with a toaster oven, you'd be amazed at how you can accomplish that toaster oven.

Well, and if you get rid of the microwave, then we don't even have to worry about you microwaving plastic, but I will say the other thing is like dishwashers. So when you put like those, those old Tupperware containers from the 90s, and the dishwasher, or like even you got to get coffee, right and you get it in a paper cup. But what's the paper cup lined with? Plastic? Right? So I tell people like if you have boiling hot coffee, don't put it in a plastic cup, you know. And if you get if you get takeout, take it out as quickly as you can from those containers. There are some states actually my state is one of them that is starting to ban certain ingredients from takeout containers, which is great. But like those are little things you can do that can make a big impact they really can. And that's where I think people get overwhelmed because they're like, Okay, what do I do? Where do I start? And what I encourage people is start with what you're about to run out of, like, let's say you're about to run out of dishwasher. So like some people really struggled to get, get rid of that like Bath and Bodyworks lotion, this the nostalgia or they don't want to ditch their candles, but I doubt you care that much about your dishwasher detergent. So when you're about to run out of your dishwasher detergent, just don't buy the same one and find a clear one. And unfortunately, it's not the easiest to do I get that because of all these deceiving labels. But there's some really great apps out there. Environmental Working Group has an app that's free. Clear, yeah, has wonderful app that's free. Yep, there's so many options out there that you can absolutely find a cleaner option. And a lot of them are similar price points, you know, so I encourage people to just take kind of an inventory of your house, what are you almost running out of? And then let's find you a cleaner, safer option.

I think one thing one really easy way to diagnose if something is really bad for you is it's the potency, the potency of its fragrance. Are 100% Yeah, so if something is really strong smelling, and especially if it smells artificial, which it almost always is, unless you're really intentionally getting something clean and green. That is the worst just like get rid of it.

That's another I tell people look at the label. If you see fragrance, I don't care if it says natural. If you see the word fragrance, put it back and find another one because you will improve your health so much because 85% of fragrance blends contain those elites, those endocrine disrupting chemicals 85% And that's an maybe an even an underestimate. But like, I know we want things to smell good. But we have to reframe our mind I can't walk down the cleaning aisle at my grocery store without getting a headache. And I would I like stores. Yeah, and they'll store Bath and Bodyworks I mean that just I can't do it. Those employees deserve like, like a triple lifetime health insurance.

Let's check on their hormones. I mean if you're if my kids come home with a fragrance like a body so new lotion or a perfume, I don't care how much money they spent on it I steal it and put it in the garbage.

Oh my god instantly. And once you eliminate it and now they don't have a tolerance. I know their news to Saturday No, but really like and I'm so proud because my husband now doesn't have a tolerance. And like if someone comes over and we can tell that they use like tide laundry and like dryer sheets, dryer sheets or another one you guys get rid of the dryer sheets. It's an easy one, get some wool balls. They're cheaper because you don't have to keep buying dryer sheets, but that's probably one of those toxic products in your home. But we can smell it now. And so my husband will make a comment and he'll be like, oh I really smell their laundry, and I'm like, over here crying happy tears because he gets it now. And it's like people are, they're like, Oh, I'm fine. I don't need to get rid of these products. And I'm like, okay, but your daily migraines, your insanely heavy periods, your cramps, you're passing blood clots every month. And that's fine. Like, maybe we need to take a step back and redefine fine. Because I don't want to just feel fine. I want to feel amazing and optimal, and not deal with headaches and fatigue and digestive problems and period problems. You know what I mean? Like, let's just redefine fine, maybe you do have to, you do have to reframe the brain because people who use those products are conditioned to associate the scent with cleanliness. And the scent isn't cleanliness, and um, takes away it takes adjustment when you get all sense out of your life. Yeah, it's an adjustment but get retrained just like your palate retrained when you stop eating chemicals, and yeah, I mean, I love chocolate. But I will I could never eat candy. Because to me that like to me, I've I don't know, I guess in my years of eating dark chocolate, I now if I go back and have like an m&m, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, All I taste are chemicals. Yeah, it just because I got away from it. And that's all that's what the process looks like, it'll be an adjustment period, and you will retrain your brain.

Yeah. And your senses actually become numb to all those fragrances, so you don't even you don't even you don't even it's not even like they're so strong anymore. But once you get rid of them. Yeah, absolutely. Then you realize, oh my God, how did I ever even tolerate those scents around me.

And it's funny, because I think a lot of people in my life have felt like, I was just kind of crazy, you know, like a little woowoo, too crunchy, granola, whatever. And then my friends get pregnant. And then they look at their books, you know, their pregnancy books that say like, Oh, time to start, you know, looking at your personal care products, there's certain things you can't use, you should be looking at. I don't know if they labeled them endocrine disrupting chemicals, but they definitely talk about things. And then they've realized like, oh, that you're not crazy. Like I actually do need to start to care about what I put on my body and what I use to clean my home. And I'm so glad that a lot of women start in pregnancy because that is so freaking important. Because we know without a doubt that the chemicals you're exposed to affect your developing fetus. And so I'm applauding these, you know, women for starting these journeys when they're pregnant. But then I want them to keep going to, you know, like, ditch that fragrance while you're pregnant. But then don't bring it back. Because guess what babies are sensitive, AF, like, we don't need them exposed to these chemicals like I, I can't even tolerate if someone comes over and wants to hold our baby. And I know they're gonna smell like dryer sheets, I can't do it, because then the baby will smell like dryer sheets. And I know that's not good for her to be exposed to. So currently, can you explain really quickly why it's so harmful to developing babies, one of the biggest reasons I would say is because we're we have studies now that link in utero exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals, to fertility challenges with babies, like later on in life. And so if you're exposed, you know, especially if you're pregnant with a little boy, that's impacting his future sperm, his testosterone levels. And with baby girls, they're born with all the eggs are ever gonna make. And they're developing those eggs while they're inside of you. And so these endocrine disrupting chemicals they pass through, they get into our uterus, and they can impact the baby's development as well.

I like to, I like to talk about the difference between the United States and the way things are done and over in the European Union. And one compelling way to position this and it's all factual, it's it's very compelling when it's positioned this way is they have their governments pay for health care over there. Their governments have actual incentive for their people to be healthy. Because when a citizen gets cancer that costs the government. So doctors who are paid salaries in many of those countries, they get bonuses for people who they see who quit smoking or make their lifestyle healthier. And because they have such incentive to keep people healthier, they've banned 1000s of chemicals that we haven't banned here. We haven't banned 11 I was just gonna say that when they at the point when they banned over 1000, we had banned 11 We're still at 11. That's a change. And DDT is one of them. And what you realize happens here is, you know, the only thing that makes a chemical get banned over here. First of all decades of death and suffering and lawsuits and when enough lawsuits occur, the FDA will finally do something because enough people read about the lawsuit in the newspaper, but they really don't change anything up until enough lawsuits occur and when settlements occur, it still isn't going to cause any change. Like I just think it's important for everyone to realize that whether we like it or not governments care greatly about their economies. Right. And that's probably what they care about the most. And the economies thrive when governments are paying for people's health care. They thrive with people being healthy in the US what makes us thrive, unfortunately, sickness or an asset, not that they want everyone sick, but they don't have incentive to change it, or testing Healthy People test, test, test, test test. So all these unnecessary interventions, doctor visits, this is what makes our economy thrive even when you're healthy. And you're always revolving a doctor.

Yep, absolutely. Yeah, Canada bans more than us too. So take the takeaway in this cynical little rant I'm going on is that when you're living in the United States, the bottom line is your government isn't going to do this for you, you have to take greater responsibility for your health care, period. That's all it means. Yep. I tell you how to all my family, because they're not going to do that the baby sunscreens are going to be toxic the baby shampoos are going to be you just have to do it yourself. And you can absolutely also have great products here and great information as well to have it all so.

Absolutely. Yeah. You have to keep your family safe. And it's a lot. I'm sorry. And I hope that one day you don't. But right now, you cannot just assume that because it's sold in stores, it's safe. And I think we're starting to see a little bit more mainstream media attention on this. benzene has been a big one, right this last year, a known carcinogen that was found in sunscreens and sanitizers, dry shampoos, and then like aerosol, like antiperspirant and deodorant. And so now I think the wheels are starting to turn in people's heads.

How many years has benzene been and all these products? Right? How many since the beginning and we've I mean, it's just crazy that we're now we're just finally talking. Carly, do you have any brands that you like, really trust top to bottom? Like, if somebody is trying to make a step in the right direction? Yeah, they're not using clean products in their house, in their home in their body? And they just want to go to a single source or to to begin anyplace else on them?

Yeah, I mean, I can think of a few it's honestly hard, because unfortunately, there are a lot of companies that make some cleaner products and others that aren't, you know, seventh generation is a really popular one that's in stores. I personally clean my home with branch basics. It's it's the best I've ever used. Because it's an amazing product. And it cleans your whole home top to bottom, it literally replaces all of your cleaning products. And it's fragrance free, which I really, really love. And it works in terms of you know, personal care products that people want inexpensive. So some brands and target. There's everyone a Laffy is really great. Mineral Fusion, well, people is a good one. Ilias a good one. For like makeup and skincare. My biggest thing now is I'm really trying to contact companies and say, Hey, what's what's your third party testing protocols? Because, truly, you know, we know that contaminants, heavy metals, they're found in skincare and makeup. And if a company isn't testing, we know the FDA is not testing. We really don't know how safe these products are. But that's unfortunately a lot of companies are not doing that yet. And then you have companies that trick people like a lot of people buy Mrs. Meyers, right. And you think of this wholesome grandma who's you know, selling these nicely scented and soaps and cleaning products. And it's a totally greenwash company, her product. But yeah, and that's some good marketing, right? Because you think this cute little old woman and that's, that's like a super trendy one. And I wanted to happen. One of the biggest is they don't disclose their fragrance. And I've smelled them. Yep, definitely synthetic. And again, like, you just can't tolerate it once you eliminate it.

So let me ask you this, there are going to be a lot of people listening who really want to make a change after this. And even if they're changing and swapping their products. So if we want to make a personal change, and I'm like, Oh, my God, but what if I have all these heavy metals and all these problems? Because of how I've lived up until today? What's the what's the primary most important way to detox? I've heard lots of different things. But let's you say, what do you really need to do to test? I mean, I've heard lots of things like testing your hair or your blood. But what are the basic ways you test for heavy metals or for anything else? Yeah. And then what are some easy ways to detox that you would say?

So I personally did urine and blood testing. When I was working with my functional medicine practitioner. I do know a lot of people will use like hair tests, she didn't in this instance. And then in terms of detoxing, it was really supporting my body as much as I could especially like gut health, because that's where a lot of this starts. And so cleaning up the products I was using, really focusing on optimizing my gut health and heavy metals are tricky, because it's again, it's an everything and it's not like companies are adding it. It's contaminating it, right. So in our makeup products, that's a huge source because of the colorants. And so for me, it was not wearing makeup for a while just taking a break, right. And then when I started wanting to wear makeup, again, it was using a company that I know was testing for it. And then things like arsenic and rice we know is really, really common. So I don't want people to be afraid of eating rice. But that was a big source of carbs for us years ago. And I just kind of took a break and then started introducing it slowly and it's not something I eat every day because I know that there's high amounts of arsenic in it. People come to me all the time. So thing for like a baby rice cereal. And I'm like, I can't recommend one in good contents. You know, there's things like dandelion tea to kind of support your detox pathways. Sleep is a huge one. And exercise is another huge one, moving your body, even if it's just walking, that really, really helps your detox pathways be able to function really well.

So there's nothing necessarily to take or to do rapidly, your body will naturally detox once you get clean your body, as usual. Okay.

Yeah. And what I tell people is, most environmental toxins, like this is the good news, you know, maybe the one we need some of those, there nonpersistent, most of them, right. And if you can eliminate them from your life, you can eliminate them from your body in your bloodstream, you know, they're not going to cumulate and stay there forever. Now, there is the exception of forever chemicals, which we've started to hear about, again, it more in mainstream media, they're called pee fast is how you'll see them. But oftentimes they're quoted is forever chemicals. Those stick around, unfortunately, and those are the things we've seen start to come out with like Teflon pans. I really recommend dark waters, that was a great film to open people's eyes about the Teflon industry. So there are some exceptions, but the majority will be out of our bodies in days, weeks. So the sooner you can start, the better you're going to be. There's a study that showed that in young girls, actually by switching to safer products, the the percentage of like heavy metals and environmental toxins in their urine went down by more than like 80% in three days. Oh, wow. Right, you're talking about you're talking about things like BPA and phthalates, but those are eliminated from your body quickly. But unfortunately, until you make these swaps, you're continually exposing yourself day after day after day. So they're still damn doing damage. Yes.

And even endocrine disrupting chemicals, we can get those out of our bloodstream real quick. That's great news. That's the good news. Yeah, there's good news.

How do you get metals out? How do you get them out today ever detox out on their own?

I mean, they can, there are some supplements that people will take. I haven't found one that I think is like the Holy Grail. For me, I just kind of look at exposure. But here's the thing, too, our body can process a small amount of heavy metals, or our liver or kidneys, like we have these detox abilities within our body, it's when they're inundated. So that's why I tell people start with swapping out some products, because that will kind of lower the toxic burden on your body. So that can work effectively. We can process small amounts, we just can't process everything. We're inundated with pesticides, you know, things like that are in our air, things that are in our food. I always tell people stop spraying your lawn for the love of God. It's just dandelions. And those pesticides are toxic to you to the planet. Like there's little things we can do every single day, but your body will heal will recover and thrive. If you can just stop inundating it with environmental toxins from every single area of your life. Give it a break.

One final question you had mentioned. And we know that we cannot look at a product from it's in take it at face value, we must turn it around and look at the ingredient lists. So for somebody who's brand new to all this, can you give us just like three or four things to look for in a label that would say No way, I'm putting it back on the shelf.

So if I were to give you like the top three things to avoid, one would be parabens. Right? We know those are endocrine disrupting chemicals, we know that they're linked to things even like breast cancer, you'll typically see a word before it like metal, hyphen, parabens, so look for Pearman look for capital P E, G, they're pegs. Those are a group of attacks related ingredients. And they're typically contaminated with known or probable carcinogens. So look for that P E, G, and again, there's going to be numbers after it. And then fragrance truly, truly just that one, that one word on the label will make such a difference. And it's in everything. And you really got to look carefully because companies are tricky. And again, they're going to put natural in front of it. And that does not mean what you think it means does not mean that it's safe. And what I like to tell people is we're never going to eliminate our exposure to environmental toxins. We're not because they're truly like I said, they're in our air and our water. They're in our soil, they're in our products. But we can take huge steps to reduce our exposure and if we do that, we're going to support our immune system. We're going to support our longevity and we're going to support our health. So it doesn't have to feel all or nothing. You know every little step will help and just get started.

Thank you for joining us at the Down To Birth Show. You can reach us @downtobirthshow on Instagram or email us at Contact@DownToBirthShow.com. All of Cynthia’s classes and Trisha’s breastfeeding services are offered live online, serving women and couples everywhere. Please remember this information is made available to you for educational and informational purposes only. It is in no way a substitute for medical advice. For our full disclaimer visit downtobirthshow.com/disclaimer. Thanks for tuning in, and as always, hear everyone and listen to yourself.
 
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