Interest grows in cleaners

Cyndi Raskin had never thought much about the chemicals in her cleaning supplies until three years ago.

Raskin was bathing her baby, who playfully snatched her mom's wash cloth and began cleaning both her tub and herself. That led Raskin to worry about the residues left behind by her cleaning supplies: Was her daughter rubbing scouring powder into her skin? Was she bathing in a chemical soup?

Raskin, 35, got rid of her commercial cleaners and found that she could clean virtually the entire house with pantry staples that were safe enough to eat: vinegar, baking soda and warm water. Undiluted vinegar, she says, cleans mirrors without streaking — or strong odors, once it dries — and costs as little as a penny an ounce.

And while Raskin still keeps a close eye on her now 3-year-old daughter, who likes to wipe down the countertops, Raskin says she feels much safer.

"It's nice to know that she can help and not get hurt," says Raskin of Dunedin, Fla.

Experts have plenty of reasons to try going green.

Many conventional cleaners are made with petroleum and are among the "most common and worrisome pollutants" in American streams, says Stanford University School of Medicine pediatrician Alan Greene, author of "Raising Baby Green."

Like Greene, a growing number of doctors are concerned that chemicals used to make homes cleaner could actually make them sick.

Household cleaners prompted a quarter of all calls to poison control centers in New York City last year, according to a March report. Across the country, 80,000 kids go to emergency rooms each year because of accidental poisoning, and about 30 children die, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. About 70 percent of nonfatal poisonings involve children ages 1 or 2.

But Greene says these cleaners could be risky even when used correctly.

Conventional cleaners often contain volatile organic compounds whose fumes can trigger asthma attacks and irritate the eyes, nose and respiratory passages, says Maida Galvez, a pediatrician and environmental health specialist at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Because most homes today are well insulated but poorly ventilated, indoor air is actually three times as polluted as outdoor air, Galvez says. This indoor air pollution may have contributed to the rise in asthma rates since the 1980s, says Philip Landrigan, director of Mount Sinai's Children's Environmental Health Center.