Costume Jewelry: Is it dangerous for Pregnant Women?
Have you ever considered the possibility that the everyday accessories you wear may contain containments of factory chemicals and carcinogenic-heavy metals? Many of the big, national retail stores that dominate the sale of cheap, readily accessible costume jewelry market include H&M, Forever 21, eBay and Claire’s. These companies manufacture the product overseas to insure cheap labor and limited regulation checks for attributes of dangerous chemicals and heavy metals. Heavy metals such as cadmium, lead and nickel have been found in consumer jewelry and through recent research, have potentially discovered the health risks associated with them.
Who is Shedding Light on Heavy Metals in Costume Jewelry?
Dr. Bruce Lanphear, M.D., M.P.H. who has been on the front-line battle against heavy metal poisoning in young children and pregnant women is one of the world’s leading experts on the effects of lead and produced a recent study at Harvard University concerning developmental growth deterrents in children.
Lanphear and his colleague, Dr. Robert Wright, discussed the possibilities that prolonged exposure to a major component of costume jewelry, lead, proved to show signs of developmental and learning problems in school children; all starting from the unborn fetus and the use of costume jewelry by pregnant women. Despite lead being a known carcinogen within the consumer market, there is a new element that brings concern to the table; cadmium. The study found out that jewelry could contain up to 30% of cadmium, which raises the question of human exposure and the potential risks it possesses for human contact. It is the preferred heavy metal in costume jewelry that adds weight and shine and is relatively new to the market, which means there are no pre-existing governmental guidelines or regulations. Recent studies have shown that pregnant women who are exposed to cadmium pose the risk of passing on negative effects to their unborn child in the fetus state. In the past, most studies were focused on the effects of lead.
Now, as cadmium is becoming more prevalent, its effects of being a neurotoxin on the nervous system are currently being studied. Current studies show however, for the human body, the heavy metal is predominately found within the kidneys and has a half-life of approximately 19 years that it can stay within the body. As both the United States and Europe do not have standards for the daily threshold for human exposure to cadmium, it is safe to say that the value of 0.5 µg/cm^2/week should be considered stated by the World Health Organization in 2003. These values, which probably mean nothing to you right now, were found by testing samples of artificial sweat and costume jewelry by Pouzar and Martin. The data collected ranged from 0.8 to 332 µg/cm^2/week, which far exceeded the governmental regulations. But because the experiment was so broad and everyone’s “sweat patterns” are different, it can be concluded that there is no present, potential risk for cadmium exposure.
Okay… So, it is just cadmium and lead right…?
Unfortunately, it is impossible to tell the composition of costume jewelry because there are so many different manufacturers. But it is safe to say that there is one more heavy metal of potentially high risk; nickel. Nickel is a major cause of contact allergies and could be the reason why your skin turns green when you wear costume jewelry, as the metal oxidizes; fortunately, this is not a reason of concern. In a 2015 experiment conducted by Boonchai, a random sample of about 300 accessories were examined and concluded that approximately 37.4% of the costume jewelry tested positive for not only nickel, but for cobalt as well; which can be responsible for skin irritations.
Those numbers are minuscule though! I probably wouldn't even notice! Right…?
As stated by the research done by the World Health Organization, pregnant women and fetuses have the same recommended intake levels because of their sharing of nutrients and the weakened immune system of the pregnant woman for the development of the fetus. By continuing the studies of heavy metals and their effects of children, it will bring to light the future results of being exposed to such minuscule levels; but currently, there are only a handful of symptoms of illness and disease that are present in the world population and may take decades to manifest results due to heavy metals and carcinogens. These risks stated by the World Health Organization also are greater by 4 to 5 times more in pregnant woman as they are more susceptible to metal exposures and environmental illness.
Well then, what are the hypotheticals I should be wary of?
A major component that Lanphear advises that is quite common with wearing costume jewelry is hypersensitivity to the skin due to the exposure of the heavy metals. This metal sensitization observed proved to have a direct correlation between the observed inflammation of the skin and the jewelry. The constant skin exposure to the metals potentially lead to allergic contact-dermatitis through developing rashes on the patient’s lips, hands, arms or fingers according to Silverberg (2016). Because the point of contact with jewelry is about 99% always through the skin, these symptoms are likely to appear first. Unfortunately, many children and sometimes adults place the jewelry inside their mouths on accident or purpose; which can lead to exponentially higher doses of heavy metals being exposed.
Furthermore, to understand not only the external damages that metals can cause on the development of fetal growth and pregnant women, the Japanese Department of Health concluded that kidney damage, skin melanoma, nausea and insomnia were potential health risks due to cadmium, nickel and lead. Most of these symptoms may be confused with normal pregnancy symptoms; however, they could also be a result of the exposure instigated by the carcinogens.
Fetal complications and epigenetics have also been recently studied and through Martinez-Zamudio and Ha (2011)’s research found that nickel and cadmium show evidence of interfering with the epigenetic markets, which can lead to a possible link between heritable changes in gene expression, disease susceptibility and neurodevelopment. The heavy metals in costume jewelry can be transferred via skin, breast milk, blood or the placenta; which creates a multitude of concerns that one may not be aware of. The metals have significant risks of weakening bone marrow production, genomic methylation (stagnant growth in cells) and lower birth weights. This has an even worse implication because the mother will then have to forgo all advantages of breastfeeding like boosting their children’s immune system, enhancing the mother and child bond, lowering the risk of the baby contracting asthma or allergies and boosting their respiratory system.
Even though the detrimental effects of these metals can take over 3 decades to become noticeable, these effects are fatal and can result in the contraction of fatal diseases in both the mother and the child.
Well… What should I do to avoid these?!
From the research compiled above, this list (in no particular order) may help in a preventative measure to ensure the lowest possible health risk for both mother and child:
(1) Try to not wear costume jewelry while working out or in hot weather.
This is a great preventative for those who usually work out or work in the outdoors and forget to take the costume jewelry off, for example, imitation earrings. As concluded in Pouzar and Martin experiment, the pores of the skin secrete sweat that can easily absorb the heavy metal particles. After the sweat has dried, you potentially risk the particulate matter entering underneath the epidermis layer and even to the internal organs. For example, someone may have done an intense workout and has sweat dripping from their face, so their instinct is to wipe it with a towel. This causes whatever was in the sweat, to accumulate on the towel and could increase the risk of the metals entering the body. It may seem trivial because the heavy metal exposure is in parts per billion, but this tip could one day safe you from a heap of other health problems that could sprout up as a result of negligence.
(2) If you must wear it, sterilize the costume jewelry.
To my surprise, I recently asked approximately 15 of my friends who wear jewelry in their every day lives the question of “How often do you clean your jewelry?”; and even though the population sample was of mainly college students, the results were surprising. Out of the 15 students, only one of them admitted to cleaning their jewelry maybe once a week, while the rest never thought of doing so. Because of this conclusion, it is important that sterilization of the jewelry is considered when wearing it for almost 8+ hours a day. Because of this constant use, the costume jewelry is bound to receive wear and tear; even though you may not see it, it exists because of the cheap production nature of the material. By removing the microbes on the jewelry by a sterile product such as alcohol, it limits the risk of allergic reactions, infection of pierced areas and symptoms of eczema.
(3) Keep it out of the reach of children
Children still growing up infinite curiosity, and one way to discover things is by sensory processing, for example, oral examination. There are a multitude of objects that should not go into a child’s mouth and one of them is costume jewelry. By taking off your jewelry and placing on the kitchen counter for example, it could get into the mouth and saliva of your child, and potentially be ingested; causing a direct risk to their health as it would ultimately increase their exposure levels ten-fold.
(4) Do not wear the jewelry 24/7 if possible.
If you must wear the jewelry, try to limit your exposure to the heavy metals by taking them off during sleep and showers, even if the statistics show such minuscule repercussions. Constant exposure to these metals for years to come could result in unwanted side effects down the line, that in present day, researchers have yet to find.
(5) Inform yourself on heavy metal sources and policies.
This article is only to serve as a basic foundation and knowledge on the topic of costume jewelry and its harmful effects through heavy metals. By doing your own research, it will educate you on if you want to continue wearing jewelry with carcinogens embedded in them.
Thank you for that, now is there anything being done to rid these jewelries of the heavy metals?
“The jewelry is an example of how one dangerous substance often replaces another. Perhaps the biggest failure is to fail to learn the lesson of the lead pandemic, that environmental chemicals and metals have the potential to be toxic, so in the end, they shouldn’t be treated any differently than drugs. They shouldn’t be used unless proven safe” — Wright (2015)
Unfortunately, even after the regulations instilled by the United States and the European Union, levels of these harmful heavy metals are still running rampant due to under-regulated production facilities. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has been in a constant battle waging war against these corporations as they taint the market with harmful consumer products, but unless they ban all the heavy metals in the world to fix this in costume jewelry; it is virtually impossible to win the war. Corporations will ultimately find loopholes to battle any regulations put in place for their product, totally disregarding potential health concerns that heavy metals have.
Take Away
As more and more fashion trends become prominent because of popular culture, the demand for cheap, imitation consumer goods are on the rise. Costume jewelry may seem as an affordable alternative to the original, but the toll on health is also priceless. It may be painful to see everyone wearing those gorgeous 30$ earrings from eBay, but by not wearing them; not only would be saving your life but may also save your next child.
