Intensive Care Linked to BPA Exposure in Newborns

Raloff, Janet. "Intensive Care Linked to BPA Exposure in Newborns." Science News. N.p., 22 Feb.  2013. Web. 25 Feb. 2013.

This article was about neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) that may be using devices that expose newborn babies to large doses of BPA.  Many of the devices used in the NICU like, breathing tubes, intravenous drug delivery lines and enclosed incubators, are made of plastic.  Many different types of plastic can contain BPA.  One of the best theories of BPA exposure was the level of care the baby received and the number of devices used to give the care.  A nurse and exposure-science researcher Susan Duty and her team studied 55 infants who were in the NICU in Boston.  They found out that the babies treated with four or more devices in the NICU had three times as much BPA as babies treated with three or less devices.  The team also discovered that the babies born prematurely had higher BPA levels because they aren’t able to break down the compound.  

This article only further concludes how dangerous BPA can be.  We send our newborn babies to the NICU to save them, but when we send them there, they are being exposed to BPA and further affecting their situation.  I felt this article only further concludes that there are harmful chemicals in everything, even the things that help us.  This is scary because that means there is no way to avoid becoming exposed to them.