Environmental Health

June 27, 2011

Once upon a time, in a tropical land called Northern Virginia in July, I was a waitress. Waiting tables came with its fair share of health effects: Aching feet, sunburned skin, and restless nights studded with telltale server nightmares about forgotten tables and fuming customers. Surprisingly, the...

MomsRising Together

Claire Moshenberg

Environmental Health Health Care

June 27, 2011

Have you ever wondered how your favorite cleaner gets that pine forest scent? Or the lemon-fresh smell that we associate with “clean”? It turns out that the fragrance in your cleaning product is actually made up of hundreds of synthetic chemicals, which may be impacting your health. We’d like to...

MomsRising Together

Cassidy Randall

Environmental Health

June 24, 2011

It's been more than a few years now, but I remember the roller coaster ride of pregnancy like it was yesterday. Nine months of bouncing from giddy excitement to mind-bending worry, pure joy to frantic nesting. Powerful emotions are amplified by equally powerful hormones, working overtime. As...

MomsRising Together

Kristin Schafer

Environmental Health

June 24, 2011

My colleague Mary Anne Hitt, the Director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign, has a powerful column today about mountaintop removal coal mining and birth defects, and I wanted to share it with the Moms Rising audience. Here it is (with a photo of Mary Anne and her daughter Hazel): I just can't...

MomsRising Together

Sarah Hodgdon

Environmental Health

June 23, 2011

With all the political mudslinging, you would think that people of faith only care about two things: abortion and gay marriage. As a practicing Catholic I tend to think the media portrays people of faith in black-and-white, which is why I was thrilled to see the Catholic Church remind parishioners...

MomsRising Together

Elisa Batista

Environmental Health Health Care

June 21, 2011

When I think about fire safety, I think about cartoons. Stick with me here. Every Saturday morning, half awake over bowls of cereal, my sister and I watched hours of Saturday morning cartoons. These blocks of animated programming were laced with PSAs preaching the importance of fire safety: Stop...

MomsRising Together

Claire Moshenberg

Childcare & Early Education Environmental Health Health Care

June 20, 2011

As advocates for deep change know, big success is often preceded by small incremental changes that may go unnoticed by the general public. It seems the effort to stop fast food companies from hawking toys to kids is gaining ground. I was watching Friday Night Lights recently (a great show if I don’...

MomsRising Together

Susan Linn

Environmental Health

June 18, 2011

As the parent of a newborn and a 4-year-old, I want to believe that my daughters will have healthy environments at home and at school. But as a pediatrician and a researcher for the University of California, San Francisco, I know that many U.S. children may face unhealthy nutrition environments in...

MomsRising Together

Anisha Patel, M.D.

Environmental Health

June 15, 2011

One in 10 U.S. Latinos aged 20 and older have diagnosed diabetes, according to the National Institutes of Health . Like many Hispanics in the country, my family has its fair share of diabetics and we are all too familiar with the different types of diabetes: Type 2 diabetes -- the most common form...

MomsRising Together

Elisa Batista

Environmental Health

June 14, 2011

Tis the season for summer beauty. Warmer days mean more sunscreen applications, different makeup routines, and more showers to make up for chlorine soaked hair or sweaty days outdoors. Unfortunately, many of the products about to enter your summer beauty routines are more than trendy: They might...

MomsRising Together

Claire Moshenberg