Sandra Steingraber

One of the most thought-provoking books I've read recently, and the most thought-provoking book about human reproduction I've ever read. Having Faith intertwines the story of Steingraber's first pregnancy, birthing, and breastfeeding experiences with a compelling account of how fetal development, breastfeeding, and environmental toxins work. I appreciate the specificity and care of Steingraber's prose: her style expresses wonder at the beauty and complexity of human show more lives/bodies/brains/breasts/fragility, but not at the expense of mentioning studies' methodological limitations and nuanced findings. This book raises vital questions in an illuminating way.

I can see how some readers (especially pregnant, breastfeeding, and/or parenting readers) might be depressed or frightened by the book's emphasis on problems we cannot control by ourselves. But I actually found its emphasis on system-level problems refreshing and encouraging, in that Steingraber constantly challenges the conventional everything-rests-on-the-individual-mother's-shoulders guilt trip. (Perhaps the fact that I already knew some of the scariest stuff helped.) I was also struck, in reading her descriptions of everything that can go wrong in fetal development, with awe and delight at how we all managed to become our human selves--how anything can possibly go right. When I was pregnant, I would have loved reading the early chapters' descriptions of what was happening at the cellular level in my body and in the body it was creating.--
Oct. 2011: now gradually rereading during my own (2nd) pregnancy ... wow I love those opening chapters!
Dec. 2011: finished my second time through; I think if I could assign one book to *everyone*, this would be it--so please go read it if you haven't yet. show less

Ecologist Sandra Steingraber examines her own pregnancy and motherhood through an ecologist's lens. She identifies how the failure of governments to operate by the Precautionary Principle (a chemical must be shown to be safe before use, instead of being assumed harmless until proven dangerous) has damaged the environment at large and many individuals (fetuses, breastfed children, mothers). She asserts that governments ought to regulate the chemicals companies produce and sell; it should not show more be the responsibility of pregnant women and new mothers to try to protect themselves from dangerous pesticides and heavy metals present in food, etc.

In addition, Steingraber offers the most thorough, honest, and understandable account of the process of labor and delivery, as well as the most articulate explanation for why the weeks and months following an infant's birth are so difficult (lack of sleep causes a slowdown of daily tasks just as they need to be sped up).

Quotes

What is known about teratogenic chemicals in the environment? Where are they located, and who is exposed? The answers are "pathetically little" and "nobody knows." ...Most chemicals have not been tested for their ability to have teratogenic effects. (88)

...the popular books and magazines do not talk much about...environmental issues....There is some kind of disconnect between what we know scientifically and what is presented to pregnant women seeking knowledge about prenatal life. (105)

"In ignorance, abstain." Why does abstinence in the face of uncertainty apply only to individual behavior? Why doesn't it apply equally to industry or agriculture? ...It's pregnant women who have to live with the consequences of public decisions. (107-108)

Obviously, a public health policy that asks expectant mothers to give up certain foods while allowing industries to continue contaminating them is absurd. (128)

...a failure to acknowledge the unique position of the breast-fed infant within the ecological world [at the top of the food chain] prevents us from having an informed public conversation about a very real problem: the biomagnified presence of persistent toxic chemicals in breast milk. (251)

"Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation." (1992 Earth Summit, Brazil)

More quotes in private notes section show less

A thought-provoking and personal exploration of what scientists, policymakers, and others know (and don't know) about how environmental toxins interact with human development and health. The strength of Steingraber's work is that -- although she narrates her own family's choices and discussed small changes we might make in our own lives (dry clothes on a line rather than in a dryer, etc.) -- she emphasizes that these huge problems require societal rather than individual change. Instead of show more placing responsibility on parents' (which generally means mothers') shoulders, she insists that our society must step up and protect individuals from corporations ... and invest in renewable approaches to food and energy production that don't carry immense hidden costs to children and to all people.

Of course, it's also a pretty depressing read, since we live in an alarmingly toxic world and can't possibly just think 'okay, I'll fix that right up, then' or even buy our children's way out of the toxicity. As Steingraber points out, no matter what consumer choices you make, you can't stop the wind from blowing or take your children out of the larger ecosystem that creates and sustains (and simultaneously poisons) their bodies. Less depressing than it would be in another, less sensitive and human, voice, but still: not a big upper. show less

This book inhabits a niche that is neglected by both scientists and by the "mommy" writers' crowd: a story about being a pregnant human who is also a biologist, in a world permeated by toxins. I found it to be among the most humane - and human - of all the books I've read about being pregnant (among other things, it respects the dignity of the woman who is pregnant and later a mother, without sliding into EarthWombMother woo-woo or infantilizing her as a weird sort of sexualized show more child-being). The environmental message it speaks in alternate breaths is disturbing, as it should be.

(Even more disturbing is the way that such messages have been, and continue to be, ignored.) show less