On average, a baby swallows more than a million plastic microparticles from his bottle every day.
This is what reveals a study published on Monday, which suggests a few actions to reduce this ingestion, the impact on health of which is not known.
The authors of the study published in the journal Nature Food exposed each of the best-selling models of polypropylene bottles to the preparation procedure recommended by the World Health Organization: sterilization of the bottle, then preparation of the formula with a formula. water heated to 70 ° C, to eliminate any dangerous bacteria.
Result: some bottles release up to 16 million microplastics per liter and temperature plays an important role.
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Thus, if the water for preparing milk is heated to 95 ° C, the quantity can rise to 55 million per liter;
and go down to just over half a million with water at 25 ° C.
A 12-month-old baby swallows an average of 1.5 million microplastics every day, according to the researchers who were based in particular on the sales figures of bottles and the volume of milk ingested per day in 48 countries.
The most affected developed countries
Daily exposure is higher in developed countries where breastfeeding is less important: 2.3 million in North America, 2.6 million in Europe.
"The last thing we want is to overly alarm parents, especially since we don't have enough information about the potential consequences of microplastics on baby health," commented one of the authors, John Boland.
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Some studies show the extent of food contamination by microplastics - WWF has estimated that the average person ingests up to 5 grams of plastic each week, the weight of a credit card.
But data are lacking on the health impact of this ingestion itself or the chemical risks associated with possible additives.
Do not shake the bottle too much, nor put it in the microwave
"It is very possible that (the particles) simply pass very quickly through the body," noted Oliver Jones, professor at RMIT University in Melbourne who was not involved in the study, quoted by Science. Media Center.
Despite everything, the authors make recommendations to limit the exposure of babies: rinse the bottles three times with cold sterilized water after sterilization, prepare the milk powder in a non-plastic container before pouring the cooled liquid into the bottle. , do not shake the bottle too much, do not put it in the microwave.
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And to heat the water, do not use a plastic electric kettle which releases "a similar number of microplastics".
The study did not look at glass baby bottles, which certainly "do not release particles", but are "heavy and breakable" and remain marginal on the market, note the authors.
Given the widespread use of plastic models, "studying the fate and transport of microplastics through the body is our next step", they said, adding that they wanted to focus on questions of immunology and biochemistry related to the ingestion of micro or even nanoparticles of plastics.