A long long time ago, Australia had community run Childcare centres, that helped mums and dads that needed to work to make ends meet. However as Globalisation started to get firmly entrenched, we started to see Young Women going overseas to become Au Pair’s and nannies, with a similar trend of young women coming to Australia to be an au pair and to learn about Australia an au pair visa was introduced to facilitate this. However a strange thing started to happen, the community centres were being sold off (Privatised) and being taken over by companies. A move which should never happen as a company will always look at how they can maximise profit and ensure the companies share value and profit is always rising.

Childcare Priorities

Looking after children is in contradiction to capitalism where you must make money at any cost, however the moment that you start to look at the bottom line then cost must be resuced and when you a\start to reduce the costs in child care centres then only cost you can reduce if the cost of caring for the children. Rumours abound about the type of cost cutting exercises, forced upon some of the child care centres such as limiting the number of nappy changes that a baby may have done (meaning the child will sit in a soiled napped for hours causing skin irritation and more), the number of sandwiches/food which a child may have during the day, getting sponsorship from fast food/frozen food manufacturers and then just serving this type of food to the children, reducing the number of children per child care worker and / or having more juniors so less wages need to be paid.

Before too long, the au pair visa was withdrawn in Australia, the moment the child care centres started to become a force in the stock market and their capitalisation was being impact by a scheme where parents can get a dedicated and enthusiastic young girl, look after their child/children in their home. Now should any young woman come to Australia to be a nanny/ au pair then they must apply for a working holiday visa where they can only work 3 months out of the year where there are no control imposed upon the industry and their is no supervising body to look after (and protect) these young women.

Nanny and Au Pair Regulation

In Europe where young women are encouraged to become au pairs and nannies, there are strict guidelines and protections in place such as having health insurance for the au pair, that the au pair must have time off to learn the language of the country, that the au pair cannot be asked to work more than x hrs per week as well as the wages paid to au pairs.

ABC Learning

One of the largest child care centres to arise out of this abandonment of au pair program and the sell off of the community centres, is ABC learning, who had a meteoric rise to fame buying up the child care centres faster than they could be sold off. Up until recently the ABC child centres was a huge corporate success, rising to $8.80 at its peak, everything they touched turned to gold, parents praising the glories of the centres and criticisms deflected as disgruntled employees or unhappy parents, no real investigation was made to assertain the truth or untruth of these rumours, not even a nightly 6:30 report for one of those popular programs that screen those dodgy stories and sometimes even dodgier informercials being sponsored by one company or other… The fact that abc are now at 54 cents and that their report which has been delayed more than once.

Failure of Privatisation

On the 27 August ABC published a story and history into ABC Learning and Eddy Groves, and the fact started to become apparent, that much of what was going on was a facade, that the story reports that the founder was a gambler and that behind the facade there was a huge real estate play. everyone wanted to believe that privitisation was the way of the future and that governments should have no role in managing services. ABC learning showed that Privitisation did work, We did not want to t\look too closely, we did not want to know the truth.

24 September ABC Learning are now facing a $100 m class action, with the litigation provider IMF Australia financing the class action to be brought by hundreds of shareholders, many whom have seen the shares plummet by more than 90% to it current levels from the highs which it experienced.
Return of Community Child care centres

24 October the ABC reported how casual child care workers are being sent home, trading in ABC learning has been suspended since september, with Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard calling ‘… on ABC Learning to publish its overdue financial accounts “as quickly as possible, so everyone can get clarity..’. Julia Gillard ‘… refused to give details of the contingency plans the federal Government is drawing up in the event of a collapse of ABC Learning..’

Yesterday ABC Learning failed to publish its financial statements again, this is the third time the Company has failed to publish the 2008 fiscal results and it is just one excuse after another, we all know the result is going to be bad, it is simply now a matter of creative accounting to make the figures look better than they really are.

Rumours have started that the government is going to bail out ABC Learning as it is too important for parents who are working and have children in the centres.. I believe the government should let the company collapse and that the community centres buy back these child care centres and that it is a service that council should provide to help out parents who both need to work to make ends meet.

Positive Parenting

Parents need to realise that their children need them. Children need a positive role model in their lives and a parent is the only person who can provide this positive role model, a disgruntled child care worker cannot provide this positive role model, being in a child care centre does not teach children how to share, essentially it is the toughest and rudest who win out amongst the children.
Morals and Values of my Child

It was once said ‘give me a child for the first 5 years of their life and I will impart all the learning and values the child will have for the remainder of their lives’ after the first 5 years then it become alot harder and more difficult to change the values of the child. Why on earth do we then put our children into child care at such a young age, where we do not know the social and moral values of the child care workers. I would not be surprised when parents look at each other and say where did our child get these morals and values from… it is only then they start to reflect that they put their child into child care and they realise the values their teenage son/daughter has is the values imparted during their early life….

Finally Avent have released to the australian public their BPA Free baby bottles

This is close on 6 months after the Australian Company Milk and Tickles released their color changing BPA free baby bottles to the Australian public last year in August.

In fact Avent have been so slow that nearly every other Baby bottle manufacturer has already released their BPA free baby bottles way ahead of them. However the cost of these new BPA free baby bottles is considerably more than the baby bottles containing the bpa; whether this is to prove a point that nobody wants bpa free baby bottles is just a guess..

However this may not be so unusual when one considers how some sales reps of some baby companies, still do not believe the evidence that Bisphenol A can cause problem with young children…

It is acknowledged that BPA is a Hormone Disruptor
It is acknowledged that BPA is a dangerouse chemical and can cause problems
however those that support BPA say that it does not cause problems

My conclusion on this sort of statement is that “A little bit of poison is ok….” at least according to some sales reps…

Sorry but for my grand children this is not ok and we will always support Glass Baby bottles and BPA free Baby bottles

Related Resources

1. Australian BPA free baby bottles
2. Bpa Free baby bottles – Grow Baby
3. Bpa Free baby Bottles – Milk & tickles
4. Discount BPA Products

Mothers exposed to high levels of chemicals known as phthalates during pregnancy may have boys who are less likely to play with trucks and other male-typical toys or to or to join in rough and tumble games, according to a new study.

Phthalates, common in the environment, are found in toys, food packaging, personal care products, nail polish, adhesives, and other products such as different household items, including plastic furniture and packaging.

Plastic furniture
Phthalates have the ability to disrupt hormones, and have been banned in toys in the EU for some years. What is being done in Australia to protect out boys from this checmical, is it more important for companies to make massive profits or is it more important that our children are not exposed to these chemicals.

The University of Rochester team’s latest work adds to concerns about the safety of phthalates, found in vinyl flooring and PVC shower curtains.

There are many different types and some mimic the female hormone oestrogen.

PHTHALATES
There are many different types and the most commonly used are deemed entirely safe by regulators
DEHP – used to make PVC soft and pliable and used in products like flooring
DBP – used as a plasticiser in glues, dyes and textiles

If mothers were in the highest concentration group, the chance that their boys had a less masculine score was five times greater than mothers in the lowest concentration group, according to study researcher Shanna Swan, PhD, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Center for Reproductive Epidemiology and an expert on phthalates.
Dr Shanna Swan and her team tested urine samples from mothers over midway through pregnancy for traces of phthalates.

Swan and other experts suspect that exposure to the chemicals affects the level of testosterone crucial for the development not only of male reproductive organs, but also the masculine brain. ”We now suspect that the phthalate [exposure] affects the entire body, not just the reproductive tract,” Swan says.

Now they say certain phthalates also impact on the developing brain, by knocking out the action of the male hormone testosterone.

This feminising capacity of phthalates makes them true ‘gender benders’ Elizabeth Salter-Green, director of CHEM Trust.

The women, who gave birth to 74 boys and 71 girls, were followed up when their children were aged four to seven and asked about the toys the youngsters played with and the games they enjoyed.

They found that two phthalates DEHP and DBP can affect play behaviour.

Boys exposed to high levels of these in the womb were less likely than other boys to play with cars, trains and guns or engage in “rougher” games like playfighting.

Elizabeth Salter-Green, director of the chemicals campaign group CHEM Trust, said the results were worrying.

“We now know that phthalates, to which we are all constantly exposed, are extremely worrying from a health perspective, leading to disruption of male reproduction health and, it appears, male behaviour too.

“This feminising capacity of phthalates makes them true ‘gender benders’.”

She acknowledged that the boys who have been studied were still young, but she said reduced masculine play at this age might lead to other feminised developments in later life.

But Tim Edgar, of the European Council for Plasticisers and Intermediates, said: “We need to get some scientific experts to look at this study in more detail before we can make a proper judgement.”

He said there were many different phthalates in use and the study concerned two of the less commonly used types that were on the EU candidate list as potentially hazardous and needing authorisation for use.

DBP has been banned from use in cosmetics, such as nail varnish, since 2005 in the EU.

The British Plastics Federation said: “Chemical safety is of paramount importance to the plastics industry which has invested heavily in researching the substances it uses.

“Moreover, the new European Chemical Regulation, REACH, will ensure further rigorous evaluation and testing or chemical substances and their uses.”

The findings are reported in the International Journal of Andrology.

I cannot understand the reasoning behind that as most other BPA free baby bottle manufacturers use embossing for any writing on the baby bottles where as avent when for the printed label still..

However when you go into a baby store and look for the avent bpa free baby bottles it is not possible to identify the bpa free bottles as the packaging is almost identical to the baby bottles containing bpa. Eventually i had to ask for assistance and the helpful person there pointed out the bpa free baby bottles.

The Writing and color of the BPA free logo is so un-noticable that many people will not see the indicator and will give up in frustration.. Please avent make the logo stand out more and please reduce the price of you bpa free baby bottles… forgot your bottom line and remember our children and babies for the future

Soy & Cancer Risk

Selective reporting of the facts can be very deceptive especially to the uninitiated, the report on the Reuters website regarding soy and reducing breast cancer risk , would seem to be promoting increased consumption of soy products. Yet despite this amazing discovery, there is no mention of the type of soy product. Why is it that there is no mention on type type of soy products consumed.

I believe the reason that there is no mention; is that all people (particularly women) who consume soy will realise the truth and that the type of soy products being promoted in western culture are in fact dangerous and cancerous to your health should you consume products from Soy Protein Isolate (SPI / TVP).

The Study was done in Japan and as such it would be assumed that the Soy Product which reduced cancer would have been fermented Soy products and not the Soy Protein Isolate eaten by most western people.

Soy is a Naturally toxic food and the only safe soy food is fermented soy. Related reading
hormone disruption

However the health impacts do not stop at being a hormone disruptor but there are other problems such as the red blood cells clumping, enlargement of the pancreas, depression of the thyroid function, not forgetting that 99% of soy beans are genetically modified.

History of Soy

Up until the Chou Dynasty (1134-246 BC) the Soy bean was not considered a food source, unlike the other four main grains of barley, wheat, millet and rice. The reason behind not using soy as a food source is that; soy was initially considered a nitrogen fixing plant, a plant to be used in crop rotation and to return nitrogen to the soil. Interestingly the pictograph of soy emphasises the root and not the seed and stem of the plant. Around the Chou Dynasty period, the discovery of fermentation techniques lead to products such as miso and soy sauce. Later towards 2 BC the Chinese discovered that when soy is fermented and precipitated with calcium sulfate (plaster) or magnesium sulfate(laxative), the food source TOFU was discovered. The Chinese did not eat the soy bean as it was full of natural toxin (anti nutrients), unlike other legumes.

Soy Protein – the Toxic Alternative

Today we have confirmed what the Chinese have known for many years, that being; SOY is full of natural toxins.

Soy contains haemaglutinin which causes red blood cells to clump together. Soy also contains enzymes which block the action of trypsin, which aids protein digestion, causing gastric diseases, reduced uptake of amino acids(essential for growth in children/babies) potentially leading to enlargement of the pancreas and cancer.

The high phytate content in soy beans means that there is a lower absorption of minerals such as calcium, iron, zinc and magnesium. Zinc being a mineral essential for brain functioning and healthy reproductive systems(esp men).

The fermentation process actually reduces many of these toxins as well as deactivating the majority of the growth suppressants. In precipitated products such as tofu, the enzyme inhibitors, concentrate in the liquid and not the precipitated product.

More is better ?

The Asian Cultures such as the Japanese and Chinese, began to incorporate Tofu, Miso into their diets, however they did not solely rely upon Soy as their only protein source and hence ate soy with other meat products, balancing out their diet. Western culture on the other hand in their extremes, figure that if some is good for you then more is better, this philosophy is further extended later in the discussion. When the West discovered that Asian Countries were eating Tofo, studies were initiated and soy protein started to look like some new super human medicinal food, touted to show benefits such as preventing conditions as diverse as heart disease, hot flashes, osteoporosis, kidney disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and even cancer. Consequently; westerners started consuming more and more tofu, forgetting all the while; that the uptake of minerals such as zinc and iron was not as good when using tofu (as a protein supplement) and they began to exhibit mineral deficiency problems.

Soy Protein Isolate – the other meat?

When soy is not fermented then the natural toxins are still going to be in the soy bean. This is where the lovely capitalist came in and destroyed everything. The Soy bean was getting alot of press; the asian countries eat soy products and have better life etc(confusing cause and effect) so the reasoning goes if they can isolate the soy protein then this must also be good as it is after all Soy bean. This is called Soy Protein Isolate (SPI), which is created en masse where a slurry of soy beans is made, an akaline solution is added to remove the fibre and then it is separated with an acid wash and neutralized by an akaline solution…eeeeewwww yuk… The Acid washing take place in aluminum vats and as a consequence aluminum is leeched into the solution..

Nitrites are formed during the spray drying of SPI, this is a known carcinogen, artificial flavorings are added to make the SPI taste more like meat and to disguise the bean taste.

I will be following up this article on the toxins we feed our children and the impacts of Soy Protein Isolate (SPI, a known hormone disruptor) on our babies. Even just considering the process to create the soy product regardless of whether fermentation take place or not, there are too many chemicals in the process… Got Natural and stay away from these Chemical laden products which only help line the pockets of greedy CEO’s.. Your Children deserve better… Related Information

• Soy the Silent Killer
• Textured Vegetable Proteins
• Soy The full Story

Milk & Tickles

Your website will fare even worse should the designer try to be clever and build your website in Flash, this is worse as google cannot read the flash content very well at them moment. Take in point the company Milk & Tickles which is an australian Company in Queensland producing BPA free baby bottles, yet when their product “Bpa Free baby bottles” is entered into google then they do not rank even in the first three pages. Worse yet is when you enter the company “Milk & Tickles” then the company ranks number 2 behind bub hub.

Once again only people who know the company Milk & Tickles are going to find the company in google, anyone who is search for the products which Milk & Tickles produce such as BPA free baby bottles will not find Milk and Tickles. This is the who objective of Search Engine Optimisation, putting together a Marketing plan so that your customers can find you when the enter your products and services into google.

For more information about how to select a SEO Company please see the report at Aus eCom Connections. Related Information

• Cheap BPA Free Baby products
• Review of BPA Free Baby Bottles guide on ebay
• BPA Free Baby Bottles from Grow Baby – Australian
• BPA Free Baby Bottles from Milk and Tickles – Australian
• Avent to delay introduction of BPA Free Baby Bottles in Australia
• BPA Free Support group on Face Book
• Health Impacts of BPA on our Babies

The website www.grbaby redirects to icon plastics

Sadly After 1 week (30 September) I have not received a reply from the company

Update 10 November 2008 – still no response from Grow Babys. Related Information

• Cheap BPA Free Baby Products
• Review of BPA Free Baby Bottles guide on ebay
• BPA Free Baby Bottles from Grow Baby – Australian
• BPA Free Baby Bottles from Milk and Tickles – Australian
• Avent to delay introduction of BPA Free Baby Bottles in Australia
• BPA Free Support group on Face Book
• Health Impacts of BPA on our Babies

BPA Free baby bottles – ebay guide

Surprisingly the ebay guide BPA free baby bottles is beginning to advertise on google adwords, i am not sure why as the information about baby bottles is purely concerning the American market and no attempt has been made to identify the Australian made or owned companies producing BPA free baby bottles, In fact no Australian BPA free baby bottles are mentioned. There is no information in the ebay guide, as to which baby bottles are BPA free or which companies are producing BPA free baby Bottles, We at babyclearance-centre are proud to be Australian and will let you know exactly which Baby bottles are BPA free, which bottles are owned by Australians and which are made here in Australia.

The article was last updated in January 2008, so it is somewhat out of date and without access to up to date information, then it makes it difficult to make a decision. One important omissions is the Canadian study release in April 2008

My last comment on this guide is that it does not link directly to the articles, whether this is a problem with ebay prohibiting the user from making external links i am not sure, but we here at babyclearance will always link to the original source. Related Information

• Cheap BPA Free Baby Products
• Review of BPA Free Baby Bottles guide on ebay
• BPA Free Baby Bottles from Grow Baby – Australian
• BPA Free Baby Bottles from Milk and Tickles – Australian
• Avent to delay introduction of BPA Free Baby Bottles in Australia
• BPA Free Support group on Face Book
• Health Impacts of BPA on our Babies