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| Main > Lead Poisoning > Prevention
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Lead Poisoning Prevention
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Lead poisoning is an important cause of learning disabilities, anemia, growth problems and children exposed to lead may have problems with paying attention and being aggressive. Children are most commonly exposed to lead by the ingestion of paint chips or dirt that is contaminated with lead.
The best way to prevent lead poisoning is to provide your children with a safe environment that does not contain any of the hazards that are known to cause lead poisoning. You need to be aware of the things that put your children at risk of lead poisoning and minimize their exposure to these risk factors.
An important way to prevent lead poisoning is to discourage your children from eating or chewing on nonfood items that may contain lead. These can include:
- paint chips or dirt.
- keys (which often contain small amounts of lead)
- curtain weights
- pewter figurines
- lead sinkers used for fishing
- lead soldiers and other collectible figurines
Other steps to prevent lead poisoning include:
- Encouraging your children to wash their hands often, especially before eating and after playing outside.
- Wash their toys often.
- Rinse pacifiers if they fall on the floor.
- Provide a nutritious diet with plenty of foods that are high in iron and calcium. Children who are undernourished can absorb more lead into their body than children with a healthy and well balanced diet.
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Lead Paint
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| Prior to 1978, lead was a common ingredient of household paint, so children living or spending time in older homes with chipping paint are most at risk for lead poisoning. If the lead paint has been painted or wallpapered over, it is not as hazardous, but it is still a risk.
Your child is most at risk if living in a home built before 1960, a time when most paint had lead in it and it was at a higher concentration than in later years.
It is the lead dust and paint chips that expose your children to lead poisoning, so you should avoid activities that create them. These can include most repairs and renovations. If you live in an older house, and are planning renovations, you should consider having the paint tested for lead by your local health department. If the paint does contain lead, then you should have a professional with experience in lead paint removal do the repairs or renovations.
To minimize your children's exposure to lead, you should:
- keep your children away from lead paint dust and chips
- clean up dust and paint chips with wet mops and rags that have been soaked in a high phosphate containing cleanser. Use separate water to rinse the areas after cleaning and always wear protective gloves.
- cover paint that is peeling or chipping with duct tape until it can be removed.
- move your children out of the house while renovations or repairs are being done and until all of the lead paint chips and dust has been removed.
- to prevent lead dust and paint chips from forming, avoid repeatedly bumping furniture or other items into walls that may have been painted with lead based paint.
- avoid opening and closing windows that have frames that may have been painted with a lead based paint. This can also create lead dust and paint chips.
- do not dry sweep or vacuum paint dust or paint chips, since this can stir up the dust and increase contamination
- have a professional remove lead paint from your home.
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Water
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Drinking water can be a source for lead ingestion in your children. Your home may have plumbing with lead pipes, lead solder or lead containing holding tanks. Older homes are the most likely to be a hazard. If your water may contain lead, or if you aren't sure that the water is lead free, you can take the following steps in decrease your children's risk of lead poisoning:
- Run the faucet for a few minutes before using cold water for cooking, drinking or preparing infant formula (this can help flush out the lead which can build up in sitting water), especially if the cold water hasn't been used in the past two hours.
- Don't use hot tap water for cooking, drinking or preparing infant formula (it is more likely to have lead in it).
- Consider having your water tested by the local health department and/or buying a filter that is certified to remove lead.
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Food
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Food can become contaminated with lead. To prevent your children from being exposed to lead contaminated food, you can:
- Avoid eating foods that are cooked or stored in imported or glazed pottery (which may contain lead).
- Avoid eating foods that are canned outside the United States.
- Wash fruits and vegetable before eating them, since they may have lead on them if they were grown in lead contaminated soil.
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Work & Hobbies
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Your child may be at risk of lead poisoning if he has family members that work at a place or has a hobby that involves any of the following:
- radiator repair
- lead industry
- welding
- battery manufacture or repair
- house construction or repair
- smelting
- chemical preparation
- making pottery
- going to a firing range
- stained glass with lead solder
- brass or copper foundry
- valve and pipe fittings
- bridge, tunnel and elevated highway construction
- industrial machinery or equipment
- casting ammunition, fishing weights or toy soldiers
- refinishing furniture
- burning lead painted wood
- automotive repair shop
If your job or hobby involves your working with lead, you should shower and change your clothes before coming home and take your shoes off before entering the house. Wash these clothes with a high phosphate cleaner and store them apart from other clothes. Be sure to keep any lead based products that you use in your hobby stored securely where your children can not access them and store them away from areas where food is prepared. |
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Soil
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Soil can become contaminated from leaded gasoline fumes. Although gas is now unleaded, the past use of leaded gasoline may have contaminated the soil. Soil is most likely to be contaminated in the following areas and you should avoid letting your children play nearby areas that may be contaminated, including:
- heavily traveled major highway or roadway
- an older house with peeling exterior paint
- smelter
- hazardous waste site
- lead industry
- place where batteries are manufactured or repaired
- house construction site
- place where cars are abandoned or repaired
Encourage your children to play in grassy areas or in sand and not in the dirt, to wash his hands after returning home from playing outside and to not eat dirt. |
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Other
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Avoid using the following products:
- folk medicines (especially home remedies) imported from another country, including:
- pay-loo-ah (fever and rash treatment).
- azarcon (a Mexican treatment for intestinal blockage or 'empacho' that is 90% lead. Also called Maria Luisa, Liga, Alarzon, Greta, Coral and Rueda).
- Asian folk remedies, including Ghasard, Bali Goli and Kandu.
- Middle Eastern folk remedies, including farouk (teething) and bint al zahab (colic).
- nutritional pills other than vitamins
- cosmetics like surma or kohl
- old newspapers, paper bags, magazines, or comic books, as they may be made with lead based inks.
- other lesser known sources of lead are:
- lead curtain weights
- bullets
- some candles made outside of the United States
- pewter figurines
- lead sinkers used for fishing
- lead soldiers and other collectible figurines
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