A new study is showing that there may be more than 100 harmful chemicals in your children’s plastic toys. Toys are a vital part of parenting and child development. Toys can help a child grow and develop their motor skills, their creative thinking and helps them with social skills as they learn to share and play with others. They also help keep children occupied if mom needs to get some things done around the house. Every Christmas and birthday is full of new, shiny toys that children just love, and parents see as relatively harmless.

According to Study Finds, a recent study is showing that there may be 100 chemicals found in plastic children’s toys that could be harmful to their health. The study was done by researchers from the Technical University of Denmark, U.N. Environment, and the University of Michigan and can be read in full here.

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When it comes to regulating children’s toys, it varies across every different country in the world, and when it comes to the lists of “chemicals of concern,” the lists may not be complete. These lists will typically point out the known harmful properties, but they will leave out all the other chemicals.

The research team wanted to see if they could estimate the potential risk that these toys have for children. The team looked at other studies and used that data since toy manufacturers do not usually provide information about the chemical content of their toys. They then used technology to estimate the exposure to children who played with these toys. What they found was that the risk of chemical exposure goes up the more toys that are in the room. They discovered that the average child has about 40 pounds of plastic toys in one room.

When it comes to how these chemicals are getting into children’s systems, inhalation was the most direct route, with ingestion being second. Ingestion is referring to children who love to put toys in their mouths. This is typically common with young infants and toddlers but is not completely unheard of in older children. They also found that out of 419 chemicals that are routinely found in the plastic materials that are used for children’s toys, they were able to find 126 that have the potential to be damaging to a child’s health. The most concerning chemicals to the team were fragrances, flame retardants and plasticizers. It looks like mom may want to try out some wooden toys.

Sources: Study Finds, DTU Management