DIY Lead Paint Testing using lead swabs

 It can be really hard to find good resources on how to test for lead. Today, I want to share some pictures I took when I was testing the doors in our old rental house for lead. I used the lead swabs you can get at your local home improvement store. They are about $25 for a pack of 6 and my experience was that each pack has at least one dud that is totally dried out. There is another type of kit available that has containers of liquid you mix together and then add a bit of whatever you are testing. It is a bit like testing the water in a pool. You wait for a bit and then compare the color of the liquid to a card they give you. This kit is harder and more time consuming, but I found it useful to test the enamel that was flaking off an old porcelain wall heater. Unfortunately, I don't have pics of that, so these pictures are all of using lead swabs to test a couple of old doors.

 To use the swabs, you need to burst the little glass bubble of liquid inside it by squeezing it and then you shake it up. You test by rubbing in a circular motion on the area you want to test. If it turns bright pink, you found lead.

 These two pictures are of the same door. The minty green color paint does contain lead. The first picture is of actually testing the door one night and the second picture is the next morning. WARNING: this bright pink reaction that occurs between the swab and lead paint does not come off. It will stain the door. It actually gets brighter as it sits there.

This is a bad spot to have lead. In general, if lead paint is covered up and intact (not peeling), you are relatively safe, but on areas of friction like this door, it is a problem. Every time this door is opened and closed, the friction between the door and frame will cause lead dust to be released into the air and settle on your stuff where you can ingest it. 

 Using the lead swab on a different door. On this door, the old green paint was not visible like it was on the other door. The back and sides of the door had been painted a very dark brown and the inside was left white. I had suspicions about this door because it was the same age as the first door that tested positive. You can see that the reaction is not as quick or as bright because the white paint is over the green lead paint.

 This is the next day. As I said, this stains the paint on the door!

 This is testing a third door just so you can see more of what positive reactions look like. In all, there were 5 doors in this house that had lead paint on them. Only one had actual peeling paint and that was on the outside of the door.

Lead in breast milk and during pregnancy

This is a sensitive topic for me since we have been through this. It makes me so sad that such a precious part of life has been poisoned by environmental toxins. During pregnancy and lactation the mother's bones break down at a faster rate and can release lead stored in them so even if there is no current lead exposure, mom can still be passing lead to her baby. Lead can also cross the placenta during pregnancy and cause many issues including miscarriage, neurological impairments in the infant, and minor congenital malformations such as skin tags and undescended testicles in male babies. The time right after birth is a time of rapid development for the baby's  central nervous system and toxic substances like lead can have devastating impacts. The good news is that lead does not concentrate in breast milk because it does not attach to fat and the level of lead in breast milk is only about 1/4 to 1/3 the amount of lead in the mother's blood. If your blood level is less than 10 μg/dL, the amount of lead passed on to the baby is 2 to 3 μg/dL and the benefits of breastfeeding far outweigh that level of lead exposure. Additionally, the United States EPA has set an action level for lead in municipal water supplies at 15 parts per billion. A WHO study puts the median level of lead in breast milk worldwide at 5 parts per billion or 1/3 the amount that is allowable in municipal drinking water supplies in the US. Formula fed babies are at a greater risk of lead exposure than their breastfed peers if parents are using tap water to prepare their formula. The US Health Resources and Services Administration has recommended that mothers with blood levels over  40 μg/dL be encouraged not to breastfeed. This recommendation seems high given the overwhelming evidence that low levels of lead exposure cause significant damage to children's memory and neurological functions. 

I think, as parents, the best thing we can do is to educate ourselves and make the best decisions we can as we go. I would like to see routine testing for lead in all pregnant women as part of the prenatal testing that is already done.  This would help to identify potential issues and let the parents take action to reduce the mother's lead exposure. Calcium supplements slow the loss of bone and help prevent lead from leaking into the bloodstream as well. 

Resources:

http://www.fetal-exposure.org/resources/index.php/1995/03/02/lead-exposure-in-pregnancy/

http://www.nrdc.org/breastmilk/lead.asp

http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/sep/2004/milk/

http://www.lead.org.au/lanv6n2/update014.html