One thing that “wellness” influencers love to tell people is that they should only consume or use food and other products that contains ingredients or chemicals with words they can pronounce. Luckily for these health maniacs, the all-natural, organic, homeopathic Babies' Magic Tea Baby Sleep Gripe Water definitely meets that standard (unlike a banana), as they can probably pronounce methanol, ethanol, and isopropanol alcohol.
Unfortunately, those ingredients? Not great for babies.
According to the FDA, which has not exactly had a banner year for food safety, the tea contains 8.3 percent ethanol, 0.35 percent methanol, and 0.48 percent isopropanol. That is about the same ethanol content as a standard single gin and tonic, which generally is not something you should give a baby, even on a special occasion.
Organic alcohols such as ethanol, methanol, and isopropanol are known to impair normal functioning of the central nervous system, while infant ethanol exposure has been linked to long-term developmental consequences. Exposure to the amounts recommended on this product’s packaging can induce drowsiness, incoordination, behavioral changes, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Exposure to higher amounts can increase risk of respiratory depression and other serious adverse health consequences.
You think?
Right now there’s no direct explanation for how the tea ended up being so boozy, but according to WebMD — a perfectly fine website if you are not there to look up your “symptoms” and convince yourself that you are definitely dying — this is actually a pretty common thing with this “gripe water” stuff.
Via WebMD:
In the past, common ingredients found in gripe water included alcohol, sugar, and baking soda, as well as herbal ingredients such as dill seed oil and ginger. Alcohol, in particular, is dangerous for newborn babies. Some gripe waters are made of up to 9% alcohol, which could potentially lead to addiction.
Today, gripe water ingredients vary by brand, and many no longer include alcohol as a common ingredient. Nowadays, the most important ingredient is usually sugar or other sweeteners. The sweet taste seems to ease pain, helping babies to calm down. Unfortunately, sugar isn’t the healthiest option for newborn babies.
Most gripe water recipes also have ingredients such as fennel, ginger, baking soda, and flavorings. In adults, fennel and ginger can help with digestion and soothe upset stomachs. But that doesn’t mean they work for babies, because babies’ stomachs are very different from those of older kids and adults.
Does that mean that there are still some gripe waters that contain alcohol on purpose? That can’t be, right? I mean, I’ve heard of old-timey people rubbing whiskey on a baby’s gums (which is also bad, don’t do that), but this is admittedly a new one on me, and now I’m going to have to spend a weird amount of time in an internet hole trying to figure out if this ever actually caused an epidemic of newborn alcoholics.
I don’t have a kid, but I would have to imagine that there is something a little bit more FDA-regulated (not that that means all that much these days) that can help with baby agita. Something, perhaps, that is actually effective.
Want to send us money in an entirely different way? Click here or join our Patreon!
The allure of “all natural” products, home remedies, and even homeopathic woo-woo nonsense to parents is totally understandable. Parents are scared that giving their kid anything could hurt them, and they want to make the right decisions. People have a predisposition to thinking that what people used or did decades ago is inherently less “toxic” than modern Western medicine, because that is something that just sounds really good and wholesome until you remember that people also used to use arsenic to treat a variety of ailments, powder their faces, and even dye their wallpaper (also to kill their wealthy relatives), and that arsenic is, also, “all natural.”
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
The movie post is up, tonight we are watching The Girl With All The Gifts.
< -- remembers being given a small tot of rum and lemon juice by Granny whenever I had a sore throat