What's Really in Your Baby's Gear? A Naturopathic Doctor's Guide to Toxicants, Fetal Development, and Long-Term Infant Health
9 min read

What's Really in Your Baby's Gear? A Naturopathic Doctor's Guide to Toxicants, Fetal Development, and Long-Term Infant Health

By Dr. Natasha MacLeay, ND

As a naturopathic doctor, I spend most of my time thinking about the body from the inside out: gut health, hormones, the terrain we build for our patients before problems ever show up. But there's a piece of that terrain that starts long before birth, and it isn't diet or supplements. It's the environment a baby is exposed to in utero and in the first months of life, including the products we bring into our homes to keep them safe.

It surprises a lot of my patients to learn that "baby-safe" doesn't automatically mean "chemical-free." Car seats, strollers, changing pads, crib mattresses, and infant clothing are often treated with flame retardants, and many contain phthalates, PFAS ("forever chemicals"), or bisphenols as part of the foam, fabric coating, or plastic components. Just like the medicine I practice, informed consent and being aware of your options will help you make the best decision for you and your family. The exposure itself isn't something you'll notice right away, but it can carry long-term health impacts for both you and your baby.


The chemicals we're talking about

A few categories show up again and again in infant products:

  • Flame retardants (including organophosphate esters, or OPFRs, which largely replaced the older PBDE flame retardants after those were phased out): added to polyurethane foam in car seats, changing pads, nursing pillows, and mattresses to meet flammability standards.
  • Phthalates and bisphenols (like BPA and its substitute, BPS): plasticizers used to make PVC and other plastics soft and flexible, found in some vinyl products, coated fabrics, and toys.
  • PFAS ("forever chemicals"): used to make fabrics water, stain, and sweat resistant, including some car seat and stroller textiles.

What connects them clinically is that most are endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), meaning they can interfere with hormone signaling, and several are classified as developmental or reproductive toxicants.


How exposure actually happens

What’s surprising for many, is that babies don't need to chew on the product for exposure to occur. Oral exposure is one of many ways toxins can be exchanged and absorbed into the body, it's just not the only route, and often not even the main one.

  • In utero: Flame retardants and PFAS have been detected in placental tissue, meaning they can cross from maternal blood into fetal circulation during pregnancy.
  • Off-gassing and dust: These are semi-volatile compounds, which means they slowly migrate out of foam and fabric into the air and household dust. A 2025 study from University of Toronto researchers found phthalate and flame retardant levels were highest in the air right around children's beds, and mattresses were a measurable source.
  • Skin contact and sweat: PFAS-treated fabrics have been shown to transfer into human sweat, and dermal exposure is a documented route for phthalates from products like diapers.
  • Hand-to-mouth behavior: Infants and toddlers touch surfaces, then put their hands in their mouths, far more than older kids or adults. Naturally, this is a major reason exposure is disproportionately higher in the youngest children.

Infants are more vulnerable to all of this than adults for a straightforward physiological reason: their detoxification pathways (liver enzymes, kidney clearance) are still maturing, their blood-brain barrier is more permeable, and their tissues are actively differentiating.

You might be thinking, well, aren't there protections and "safe" exposure levels already built into baby product regulations? There are. But those standards are typically set per chemical and per product, and they don't account for cumulative exposure over days, months, and years, or for the fact that many of these compounds don't leave the body easily once they're in it. That's the piece I want you to sit with: the fewer non-toxic swaps you have to think about now, the less your baby's body has to store and eventually try to detox later.


What the research tells us about long-term impact

I want to be precise here rather than alarmist, because the research varies in strength depending on the outcome and the chemical class.

Fetal growth and pregnancy complications. A 2024 review in Pediatric Research concluded that persistent organic chemicals, including certain flame retardants, are consistently linked to hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, placental abnormalities, and fetal growth restriction, while evidence for phthalates and bisphenols on these specific outcomes is less consistent.

Neurodevelopment. This is where the evidence is strongest. The same review found that prospective birth cohort studies "strongly support" a link between prenatal exposure to flame retardants and organophosphate compounds and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes. Separately, a cohort study measuring PFAS directly in placental tissue found associations between higher PFAS levels and lower cognitive and motor scores in male infants at 12 months, and researchers have flagged prenatal PFAS as a possible contributing factor in some attention and neurodevelopmental phenotypes, though findings across studies are still mixed.

Endocrine and thyroid function. Flame retardants, and OPFRs in particular, have been repeatedly linked to disruption of thyroid hormone signaling, which matters enormously in infancy since thyroid hormone drives early brain development. PFAS has separately been shown to interfere with vitamin D receptor signaling in lab studies, a newer area of research worth watching.

Cellular and DNA-level effects. A 2025 study specifically looking at disposable diapers found measurable dermal phthalate exposure in infants that correlated with markers of DNA oxidative damage, a reminder that "low dose" doesn't mean "no biological signal."

Product testing reality. Independent testing gives a sense of how common this is: the Ecology Center's Healthy Stuff Lab found that more than half of tested U.S. car seats contained flame retardants, PFAS, or both, and an earlier peer-reviewed study found chemical flame retardants in roughly 80% of tested infant products made with polyurethane foam.

None of this means a single exposure event determines a child's health outcome. This is cumulative, low-dose, long-duration exposure we're talking about, which is exactly the kind of thing a functional medicine lens is built to think about: total body burden over time, not one scary chemical in isolation.


What you can actually do about it

All of this information means nothing if you don't know what to actually do with it. Without next steps, it just becomes one more thing on an already long list of things you're supposed to be managing. So here are a few genuinely useful choices, ones you can actually act on:

  1. Choose gear labeled flame-retardant-free and PFAS-free where possible. Federal flammability standards for products like car seats and strollers can typically be met through fabric design and inherently flame-resistant fibers rather than added chemical treatments, so this isn't a safety trade-off, it's a manufacturing choice. Bumbleride's materials story is a good example of what that looks like in practice: their fabrics are OEKO-TEX Standard 100, Class I certified, and every product line is free of flame retardants, phthalates, BPA, PVC, and PFAS, using a plant-based durable water repellent instead of the "forever chemicals" still common in stroller and car seat textiles.
  2. Air out new gear before use. Off-gassing is highest when products are new; airing out a car seat, mattress, or stroller outdoors for a few days before use meaningfully reduces initial chemical release.
  3. Wash new fabric items (crib sheets, clothing, carrier inserts) before first use to remove manufacturing residues.
  4. Reduce household dust. Since flame retardants and PFAS concentrate in dust, frequent wet-mopping and HEPA vacuuming, plus regular hand-washing for babies and caregivers, meaningfully cuts exposure via the hand-to-mouth route.
  5. Prioritize the products with the most contact time. Car seats, mattresses, and anything your baby sleeps or sits in for hours a day are worth the most scrutiny, more so than an occasional-use item.
  6. Look for third-party verification, like OEKO-TEX certification, which independently tests textiles for a defined list of harmful substances.

 

Why I chose the Era Stroller for my own family

This is exactly the research that shaped what I looked for when picking a stroller of my own. I went with the Bumbleride Era, and the materials were a big part of that decision: 100% recycled PET fabric made from post-consumer plastic bottles, a cork handle instead of a synthetic grip, and a PFAS-free durable water repellent that swaps "forever chemicals" for a plant-based alternative. No flame retardants, no phthalates, no BPA, no PVC, no polyurethane foam. It's the kind of transparency I want to see in every product category, not just strollers: a company willing to list exactly what isn't in what they're selling you, not just what is.



The bigger picture

I always come back to the same idea with my patients, pregnant or not: you can't control every input, and you don't need to. What you can do is stack the deck: reduce the exposures that are easy to reduce, and let go of the ones that aren't worth the mental energy. Choosing gear that's transparent about what it doesn't contain is one of the simplest, lowest-effort ways to lower your baby's total chemical burden during the most sensitive window of development they'll ever have.


References

  1. Vrijheid, M. et al. "Development and child health in a world of synthetic chemicals." Pediatric Research (2024). https://www.nature.com/articles/s41390-024-03547-z
  2. University of Toronto research on flame retardants and phthalates in children's bedroom air and mattresses, reported by Environmental Working Group (2025). https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2025/06/two-new-studies-find-harmful-chemicals-childrens-bedrooms-and-mattresses
  3. "Individual and mixture associations of placental per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance with neurodevelopment at 12 and 24 months of age." NIH/PMC (2025). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12453629/
  4. "Research Progress on Neurodevelopmental Toxicity in Offspring after Indirect Exposure to PFASs in Early Life." NIH/PMC. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10386615/
  5. "Endocrine disruption of vitamin D activity by perfluoro-octanoic acid (PFOA)." NIH/PMC. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7545187/
  6. Lai, X. et al. "Infants' Dermal Exposure to Phthalates from Disposable Baby Diapers and Its Association with DNA Oxidative Damage." Toxics (2025). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11946139/
  7. Ecology Center. "Toxic Inequities: 2022 Car Seat Report." https://www.ecocenter.org/our-work/healthy-stuff-lab/reports/toxic-inequities-2022-car-seat-report
  8. Toxic-Free Future. "New Study Finds 80% of Baby Products Tested Contain Toxic or Untested Flame Retardants." https://toxicfreefuture.org/press-room/new-study-finds-80-of-baby-products-tested-contain-toxic-or-untested-flame-retardants/


This article is for educational purposes and reflects current research as of 2026. It is not a substitute for individualized medical advice. Speak with your doctor about your family's specific situation.

 

Dr. Natasha MacLeay, ND, is a naturopathic doctor and founder of Tulsi Wellness Club in Del Mar, CA. Known for helping women "from the gut up," she specializes in gut health, hormones, and detox, translating the research into actionable takeaways for the 98K+ women who follow her @dr.natashamacleay. Because in a world where our toxicant exposure list keeps growing, you can't avoid everything, but you can build a gut capable of clearing out what doesn't belong.

 

Check out our materials page to see Bumbleride's eco story.