Conference moira::parenting

    >>check with your doctor about giving your baby bottled water, I know
    >>you are not supposed to give bottled water to a baby.    He should
    
    This is news to me....do you know WHY, Bernie?
    (I would expect that perrier is out, but non-carbonated stuff
    is just WATER after all....)
    
    Monica

>>  (I would expect that perrier is out, but non-carbonated stuff
>>   is just WATER after all....)

	Tell that to Emily ;-)  She wanted my seltzer water in the
	worst way last night.  I let her try it, thinking she'd balk
	at the bubbles, but she loved it!

    Monica,
    
    When Daniel was born, the nurses told me never to give him bottled
    water, but coiled boiled water, as there were some chemicals in
    the bottled water that would be too strong for the baby.     How true
    that is, I do not know.
    
    
    
    Bernie

    Monica,

    In a catalogue I was looking at last night, one of the items was
    a special version of a popular brand of bottled water for babies.
    Having read your note, it caught my eye, and the description mentioned
    that it was particularly low in minerals.  It was in the Boots
    catalogue (UK).

    Some bottled waters are high in different minerals, and at least one
    does a "light" version in the supermarkets here in the UK, which has
    a lower concentration.

    Ali

    
    
    Bottled water is not regulated the way municiple water supplies are.
    As already mentioned they tend to have high mineral counts, lead !
    
    Also, they don't add flouride to bottled water which is important to
    the baby, that's one of the reason why they tell you to give babys
    juice from concentrate and mix with tap water. I don't know of any
    communities that don't add flouride to their water supply here in 
    Mass.

    I think we also have to define "bottled water"
    Are we talking about what can also be termed as 
    mineral water (as in my previous example: Perrier)
    Or are we talking about local brands of spring water 
    often sold in large mult-quart plastic containers?
    
    Monica

    Concerning the bottled water.  There was recently a consumer
    organisation that did a test here in Switzerland of all kinds of
    bottled water and the tap water from various areas.  In all cases, the
    tap water was found to be as pure as or purer than the bottled waters. 
    There was no particular difference in terms of minerals found in
    either except for special spring waters known for high concentrations
    of certain minerals.  The conclusion was that the only reason to buy
    bottled water is if you like the "fizz" in it (which I do :-).
    
    Babies here get their flouride in the form of a tiny little pill per
    day.  Our water is not flouridated (but salt sometimes is).
    
    Cheryl

The magazine Consumer Reports did a blind taste test a few years ago.  The 
test included several expensive bottled waters.  The winner was New York City 
tap water.

While I understand what they're doing, somehow the term "light" water makes me 
smile.  The wonder of modern marketing.  What will it be next?  "Clear" water?

Clay

    My best friends dad is a professor of microbiology at Northeastern
    University in Boston and he has been studying bottled water for about
    10 years now.  He's been presenting papers around the world (and was
    even interviewed on 20/20 a couple of years ago) on this topic and his
    conclusion is:  You're better off drinking tap water.  Bottled water is
    not regulated and many of them are high in sodium, lead and other
    harmful minerals.  It's really a big marketing hype, you see a big jug
    of "Mountain Clear Spring Water", for example, and you think "Oh, how
    refreshing that sounds, it must be good for me."  But, if you read the
    small print at the bottom of the label it probably says "Sprung from
    Boston Harbor" or some other non-clear, non-mountainous water source.
    Not all bottled water is bad, Perrier is one of the better ones, it's
    just you have no way of knowing what you're getting.
    
    Susan
    

    Lately in the baby food section at the grocery store I've seen Gerber
    (I think it was gerber) that came out with bottled water for babies!  I
    also saw that on vacation down in Florida in March - I cracked up
    laughing at first, but after reading this note, I now know why babies
    have their own water.  Whether it's "pure" or not, I don't know.

    
    
    This is news to me!  I have been drinking several 16 oz water
    containers from Hood a day.  They specify sodium free and all this good
    stuff that is supposed to be "good for you and baby".  Am I to assume
    now that I have been drinking tons of lead too?  I should of just drank
    the water from the Mill bubbles then and kept the couple of dollars I
    spent for the baby fund! :)
    
    
    cj
    

It very much depends on your local water.  If your water is at all reasonable,
then there is a good chance that bottled water is no better than your tap water.
Obviously there are some places where the tap water is really bad.  In which
case you are better off with bottled water (but you should may want to have
the bottled water checked to determine whether it is OK).

I'm not sure, but they may not have any regulation on bottled water as to
whether they need to prove that there isn't any sodium in it.

Dick

   OK, ok... so this is a bit of a divergence... but here's a great
   marketing idea for parents (and anybody really) who needs a clean
   source of drinking water while traveling ...
   
   
   INSTANT WATER!!!
   
   Just add water, and you have it... it comes in easy-to-carry packets
   (like unsweetened kool-aid), and it contains all the gov't minimum
   requirements for minerals and vitamins.  Later on we'll start carrying
   Flavored Instant Water - Lemon/Lime, Cherry, and the ever popular
   Chocolate!
   
   Waddayathink?!
   
   -Tom

    
    
    I bought some powdered water, but didn't know what to add!
    
    Steven Wright

    	
    		I put instant coffee into the microwave 
    		and almost went back in time.
    
    					- steven wright 
    

    I'm also one of those people that has been drinking bottled water for a
    few years now.  When I say bottled, I mean either Spring water or
    Distilled water.  No one has mentioned distilled water, is there
    supposed to be just as many minerals (lead) in distilled?
    
    I live in Cleveland and our tap water isn't all that great although I
    do drink from the tap at work.  
    
    Loreen

   Actually, I thought that distilled water was supposed to be nearly
   sterile... the distillation process itself takes care of that.  If you
   consider what it really does - you boil water, and condense the steam
   back into water.  I believe that means that the only stuff that
   distillation won't remove from water are substances that have a
   boiling point lower than water.
   
   - Tom

    actually, I am lead to believe that the bottled "spring water"
    in the region is pretty good, since we have a number of Springs
    that are actually up north in the mountains. My parents often fill
    a few jugs up north.
    For us, one of the worst things I've found about moving to Ottawa
    was the water. Blechh!! What we have always done for Charlotte is
    used one of those filter jugs and use the water from it. Our
    drinking water is filtered tap too. I CAN'T STAND the fountain
    water at work (both here in Hull, and when we used to be in 
    Kanata) so I pass a whole jug's worth through the Britta jug in 
    the morning, and bring it in to drink.
    
    Monica

    My Mom says to make sure that the bottled water you buy
    is from out of state because then it federally regulated.
    
    - Cathy

    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Re:  .5  :  The Town of Maynard, for one, does NOT add fluoride to its
    water.   Because of this, our Pediatrician prescribed vitamins
    containing fluoride (Tri-Vi-Fluor) for our baby at his 2 week checkup.
    
    Also, Maynard's water was recently listed as having 17 ppb of lead, and
    the EPA's standard limit is 15.  
    --- We use bottled water for drinking and cooking !!!
    
    Last month's Consumer Reports discussed home water filter systems,
    everything from major systems to the Brita jug-filter method.  We
    are currently trying to decide if we should keep going with bottled
    water (maybe getting it delivered), or if we should get a filtering
    system.  One thing we're sure of -- that we're not going to depend on
    the Town of Maynard to give us water that adheres to the EPA
    recommendations!!!
    
    Judiann

I know this is not on the topic, but I needed to respond. 

>     Also, Maynard's water was recently listed as having 17 ppb of lead, and
>     the EPA's standard limit is 15.  

That study chose the worst possible homes (based on age of house, 
age of street pipes, etc) in each of the towns and sampled them. 

We live in an old home in Maynard and tested 0.    

"Maynard's water" does not have 17ppb rating;  as with a lot of things, it 
varies on almost a home by home basis.    Just as people who live in towns 
who were listed as above the 15 may not have a problem at all, people should 
not feel a level of comfort based on their town not being on the list, 
they may well have a large problem. 

    .22 gets to the heart of the problem -- the amount of contaminants
    of any kind really depends on your house, because you may have
    lead sweat joints in your supply pipes, or stuff in your well water,
    or whatever. So it really is hard to know what you've got unless
    you test your very own water. (And if you do, be sure to test a
    sample taken first thing in the morning, or after a long period
    in which no one has used water.)
    
    As for bottled water, you can ask the supplier to send you an analysis
    that covers all your concerns. I suppose they could lie, but what
    would that do for business? The media run features every so often with 
    test results and the reputable bottlers sure don't want to be caught 
    cheating...
    
    Lucy
    

    My sitter has introduced all her daycare kids to the Adirondak flavored
    water.  AJ has dubbed it "fuzzy water" because of the carbonation.  Now
    I thought this was OK, after all the bottle and contents are clear,
    imagine my surprise when they started marketing "diet" Ardirondak
    water, and I turned a regular bottle on the side to see the second
    ingredient to be "high fructose corn syrup"!  
    
    Water, ya right...it belongs in the SODA section NOT the Bottled water 
    section!!  It's got more ingredients than COKE!
    
    Oh and this morning I was getting a glass of water in the SHR caf, and
    found black specks!  The women who work the caf say it's normal because
    the site won't add a filter, nor will they allow them to buy bottled
    water! 
    
    and then there was last night's TV news, Westboro's town water is the
    color of TEA.  They say it's because the water consumption is up so
    much that they are using backup wells.  The "town officials" claim the
    discoloration is "harmless".  And Now I just put AJ into a summer care
    program in (of all places) Westboro!  Fortunate (I think) they do have
    the 5 gal jugs of Poland springs water there.
    
    Lyn

    Lyn,
    Many so called "Natural" fruit flavoured drinks have a LOT of sugar in them 
    I noticed this when I was hunting for something "Light" on my diet days
    last summer (post Charlotte Flab-Disappearance Campaign). 
    I guess its back to the old standard of read the ingredients on
    EVERYTHING.
    
    I noticed this degradation in the water quality down your way - When
    I was in Marlborough and Maynard at the end of May, the tap water was
    quite drinkable (I am very sensitive to this since Ottawa tap water
    is TERRIBLE). But on my last trip 2 weeks ago, I started gagging on
    it (made me feel at home). We use one of those filter jugs - it does
    wonders for taste and removal of all kinds of undesirable "Stuff" I
    take a big jug of that prefiltered water to work each day.
    
    Monica