Where is lead found?
Lead can be in the dust and dirt around your home. Lead can be in your child’s toys or in jewelry. Lead can be in the paint that chips off of your walls or windows. How can lead get into your child’s body? Children touch dirt, toys, or paint and then touch their food or mouths. Lead can get into your child’s body when they put toys or jewelry in their mouths. Your child may eat paint chips or dirt. How can I protect my child? Ask your healthcare professional to test your child for lead. Many children with lead poisoning have no symptoms. All children should be tested between the ages of six months to six years. This is the period in a child’s life when lead can do the most damage to their development. If you do not have health insurance, or don’t know where to have your child tested, dial 2-1-1. Buy toys that are appropriate for your child’s age group. Wash your child’s hands often with soap and water, especially before they eat or sleep and after they play outside. Wash toys, bottles,
Lead is a poison that is present throughout the environment as a result of industrialization. Lead poisoning can cause severe health problems, especially in young and unborn children. Lead effects every system in the body. it is particularly harmful to the developing nrevous systems of young children. Diagnosing lead poisoning can be very difficult because there may not be any symptoms, or the symptoms may signify something else such as GI upset, with loss of appetite, nausea and abdominal pain.
• Lead-based paint – Many children get lead poisoning when they eat paint chips or inhale dust from peeling lead-based paint, in or outside the house. Houses built before 1978 are more likely to contain lead paint than houses built after 1978. Lead-based paint may also be found on toys and furniture. • Soil – Soil can get lead in it when paint on the outside of houses, buildings, or other structures flakes or peels. Lead can also be found in soil around old playground equipment. • Drinking water – Drinking water can become contaminated with lead when it passes through older lead pipes, newer brass pipes, or copper pipes that are joined with lead solder. Over time water can corrode the pipes, letting lead into the water. • Jobs and hobbies – Working parents may bring lead home on their hands, clothing, and shoes.
Lead can be found in old paint. Lead used to be in paint, but now that we know lead can hurt us, paint is no longer made with lead. If your house has old paint on the walls or woodwork, that old paint may have lead in it. As paint gets old it crumbles off walls and woodwork. The old paint becomes part of the dust in our house. Eating or breathing that dust is how lead can get into our bodies. Lead can be in the dirt around your house. If lead paint was used for the outside of your house, it can peel off and crumble on the ground. That is one way lead gets into your yard. Lead can be in some jobs or hobbies. If you work in a job where lead is used, it can come home on your clothes. Hobbies, like making lead bullets or lead glass windows, can bring lead into your home on clothing.
