Helen Jukes, Photographer – Amanda Jackson
In her new book, Mother Animal, Helen Jukes combines a personal account of pregnancy, birth and early motherhood with fresh insights from evolutionary biology, zoology and toxicology to explore what it means to be a mother today. In this edited extract, Helen explores chemical pollution in the context of the maternal body, gestation and early infancy.
Learn more about the forever chemicals, PFAS, and other chemicals of concern.
The word contaminate comes from the Latin contaminatus, meaning ‘to defile, to corrupt, to deteriorate by mingling’, and originally ‘to bring into contact’ – to contaminate, then, is to corrupt through touch.
Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) were first identified in the 1940s when the pesticide DDT was linked to declines in bald eagle populations – among other indicators of widespread contamination, females were laying eggs with shells so thin they cracked. Since then, effects have been reported in every species brought under investigation. And because hormones are the great drivers and regulators of fertility, pregnancy, birth and lactation, these processes are particularly vulnerable to disruption. Fish are especially sensitive, since embryos lack the protection of a hard eggshell, meaning they can be directly exposed during fragile developmental stages – but ultimately the influence of EDCs extends far beyond aquatic ecosystems, and across all taxonomic groups.
Curious then, that in all the pregnancy and breastfeeding manuals I read, I saw no mention of them. Nor had I come across them in the stories I’d found of parenting in other species, meaning there were things, as I readied myself to become a mother, that I specifically did not learn. I did not learn about the beluga whales pulled from the St Lawrence Estuary between 1983 and 1990, their carcasses so contaminated with industrial pollutants that milk production had been compromised in eight out of seventeen mature females. I did not learn about the rodents in sparkling clean laboratories whose mammary glands failed to develop fully following high exposures to per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), or forever chemicals – a group of several thousand substances that includes a number of proven endocrine disruptors. I did not learn about the human studies that found high exposure to forever chemicals was significantly related to early undesired weaning, or not initiating breastfeeding at all; or that they were present in the make-up I applied to my skin, and the waterproof coating on my raincoat, and the stain-resistant fabric I paid extra for when, feeling very grown-up and proud of myself, I purchased a new sofa for our home – a sofa that I imagined would weather a growing child. The connection – mother, baby, contaminated world – was not often presented, or if it was, the problem was limited; a matter of personal responsibility. Eating less seafood, for example. Avoiding cigarette smoke. The problem was practical; the problem could be written on a list and pinned to the fridge. It was about steering clear of certain foods, certain places. It was not everywhere. It was not all-pervasive. Yet even still, even then, it had bothered me. The thought that the maternal body was not necessarily protective; that it was not wholly sealed.
In the first weeks and months of motherhood, as I first began reading about EDCs, I began wondering what to make of a world where edges are disregarded in such a fundamental sense. Outwardly, I suppose I appeared calm. I hushed, I soothed, while all the time a storm was underway inside me – I couldn’t remember ever having felt so open.
This is an edited extract from Mother Animal by Helen Jukes (Elliott & Thompson), out now in hardback and ebook.