Hand sanitizer

knottieba886490cf35ea60

I feel crazy for posting this but I’m 11 weeks and the other day I was using hand sanitizer at work while one of my coworkers mentioned that I should avoid hand sanitizer because hike pregnant because it could absorb through the skin. I haven’t heard of this before but now it made me concerned because I have been using hand sanitizer on a daily throughout my first trimester. Any moms ever heard of this? Do any pregnant mons use hand sanitizer while pregnant especially during their first trimester? Any advice is much appreciated.

wednesdayschild

It’s not hand sanitizer per se - it’s triclosan and triclocarban, which were popular ingredients in antimacrobial products and also endocrine system disrupters. The FDA banned them awhile ago, but they can still be in older products and their “antibacterial” replacements are not much better. So avoiding antibacterial products is probably a solid move, but unlikely to have caused an issue if you didn’t — the exposure level would have had to have been quite high. 

The APA actually recommends that pregnant women use alcohol-based hand sanitizer if soap & water aren’t available! Your coworkers advice is well-meaning, but probably a little outdated (unless they believe something about alcohol absorption through hand sanitizer or something 🙄🙄) 

froggerblue

If you can use soap and water, I would personally prioritize that. But, hand sanitizer is way better than risking an infection. I always have some on hand in case there's no soap and water available when I need it.