The Truth About Using Tap Water to Make Baby Formula

In 2006, one California couple joined the many other couples who had the daily task of making baby formula. That young pair of adults did not want to be using tap water to make baby formula. Therefore, they purchased hundreds of plastic bottles containing what they thought to be "safe" water. They assumed that their decision to buy bottled water satisfied their goal-the goal of not using tap water to make baby formula.

Unfortunately, that couple did not realize that any water that is bottled in the same state where it is sold does not need to be any more pure than the tap water in that same state. The chemicals in personal care products make their way into the aquatic environment, and then those same chemicals eventually show up in both tap and bottled water.

Chemicals from personal care products represent only a fraction of the many chemicals that wash into our sewer and septic systems each day. Chemicals from insecticides and pesticides have become a part of the aquatic environment. Chemicals from manufacturing facilities often get dumped in streams, streams that feed municipal water sources.

Government studies have revealed the presence in tap water of at least 80 contaminants, chemicals that can cause all sorts of health problems. Infants that drink tap water can suffer diarrhea, vomiting, cramps, pneumonia, headaches, nausea, eye and nose irritation and skin damage. Those are just the medial problems that might develop during the child's first year of life.

During the first six months of life, a child's system undergoes rapid development. During that time, an infant that takes in harmful chemicals could experience shortness of breath, loss of hair or finger nails, numbness in the fingers and toes or even anemia.

Later, as the infant becomes a toddler and then a young child, other medical conditions might present a challenge to the child and his or her family. After an infant has been exposed to the contaminants by using tap water to make baby formula, then the developing baby might well become predisposed to cancer, to increased blood cholesterol, to decreased blood sugar, to problems with circulation or to intestinal lesions.

Sometimes, an infant that has taken in baby formula made from tap water suffers mild simple medical problems, such as allergic dermatitis. At other times, a child might develop conditions that threaten diminish the quality of his or her life. Such a child might, for example, suffer from a bone disease, thyroid problems or nerve damage.

Once a child begins attending classes at school, then teachers and parents might suddenly become aware of other problems caused by use of tap water in the preparation of baby formula. The contaminants in that water can cause a child to have an attention-span deficit or a learning disability.

The idea that any of the ingredients in baby formula might harm an infant frightens young parents. Faced with evidence about the contaminants in the water, parents have good reason to swear off using tap water. Yet the decision to purchase bottled water is not the ideal way to follow-up on a decision to avoid using tap water to make baby formula.

The filtering of tap water represents a better solution. An activated carbon filter, combined with ion exchange and micron filtration can remove unwanted contaminants from tap water. Parents can sleep better if they know that their infant has been fed formula made with the safest possible water.