In the scenario provided, a woman delivers a healthy baby just prior to starting a new job at a small manufacturing plant. Within a few months after she starts work at her new job, her infant appears sickly and is hospitalized. The woman discusses her newborn’s condition with her co-workers and finds an unsettling similarity to events that led up to the illness of another female co-worker’s child.
Determining whether a connection exists between the mother’s new job and her child’s illness would begin with ruling out causes of the child’s illness such as normal childhood illnesses, uncommon diseases and/or and accidental exposures to toxins in the home or elsewhere. Absent biological disease, laboratory testing would determine toxins in the child’s body. Upon ascertaining the causative toxin, an investigation would determine where the toxins originated and how they were introduced to the child.
The child, being healthy at birth, appears to become ill due to an acute exposure to the causative agent after birth. Two possibilities that exist for the child’s intoxication and
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Although it cannot be ruled out completely, the child becoming ill from toxins passed in the mother’s breast milk is a less likely scenario than the child becoming ill as a result of exposure to toxins brought home by the mother on her clothes or other articles (Natural Resources Defense Council, 2005). There are numerous articles and reports stating that although contaminants are commonly passed from mother to child during breastfeeding, levels high enough to cause toxic exposure are rare, and the negative effects of the contaminants present in