Half Changed World

Today’s book review (back in its regular Tuesday slot) is Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood, by Sandra Steingraber.

At its heart, this book is a passionate plea for environmental action, focused on the effects of persistent pollutants on developing fetuses and nursing infants.  Steingraber is an ecologist, but one who can discuss scientific studies in layperson’s terms. She describes example after example of chemicals that are polluting our environment — lead, methyl mercury, dioxins, PCBs, pesticides — and how they affect children’s developing bodies and brains.  Fetuses are particularly vulnerable to these chemicals in part because of the wonderous precision of fetal development (Steingrabber describes how the toxic drug thalidomide caused different deformations depending on exactly which days of development the mother took it) and in part because the human body is unable to discard many of these poisons once consumed.  This means that the developing fetus is exposed to the cumulative burden of all the toxins the mother has breathed or eaten in her lifetime, not just those experienced during pregnancy.

Steingraber acknowledges that the evidence of damage is strongest for very high levels of pollutants — which are, fortunately, rarely experienced — and that less is known about the effects of the more common lower levels; however, she argues for the precautionary principle, which holds that when potential damage is irreversible, you shouldn’t wait for conclusive scientific evidence.  She points to the inconsistency between how we treat exposure to alcohol — telling expectant mothers that no level of alcohol consumption is acceptable — and how we treat exposure to toxins such as lead and mercury.  She is passionate that we should not put all the burden on pregnant women — telling them not to eat many species of fish, for example — but should instead clean up the world.

Interwoven into this environmental discussion is Steingraber’s discussion of her own pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing experience with her daughter, the Faith of the title.  She talks about the environment around her — from the woods of the midwestern college where she is a visiting professor, to her Somerville, MA, apartment, to the isolated Alaskan villages she visits — and how her body is her daughter’s environment.  The months of her pregnancy are the organizing structure for the book, providing a forward thrust to the narrative and leavening the otherwise deeply depressing material.  This is a really difficult trick to pull off — in writing this blog I’ve discovered just how hard it is to move smoothly from global trends and statistics to individual experiences — but for most of the book Steingraber makes it seem natural.

While this book was recommended to me by a pregnant friend, I think it might well have given me a panic attack if I had read it while pregnant myself.  But, overall, I’d definitely recommend it.  I learned a lot about both fetal development and the environment, but I also enjoyed the time spent in Steingraber’s company.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 9th, 2004 at 9:00 pm and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.