Is baby powder really safe to use?

[Kait1223]

Hi everyone! I’m curious about the safety of baby powder, especially the talc-based ones. Recently I’ve heard quite a bit of conflicting information about whether it can cause cancer. I’d love to hear your experiences and any advice you might have. I use it nearly every night for my 4-month-old, and now this has given me a bit of a fright — but I’m sure it’s nothing!

Huh, cancer rates are sky high - who knows what did and didn't contribute?

On MN every time this is discussed, people adamantly argue that it can’t possibly cause cancer because they used it on their 10 kids and 23 grandkids and they’re all fine.
It would have been very interesting to see whether there was identical resistance to the early research about smoking in the 70s/80s when so many people still smoked and of course most never got cancer. Personally I didn’t see the need for baby powder so never used it with mine. But I’ve seen some of the adverts, the marketing of this toward women in the 50s/60s was really sexist and appalling, and J+J massively covered this up, the affected people do deserve compensation. Read into it from reliable sources, it’s not a mad conspiracy theory, it’s an example of big business trying to minimize a cock up.

Scientists. Obviously.

This has been known for many years.

Johnson & Johnson have set aside over $8 billion to settle all current and future claims arising from talc related cancer deaths and injury

In fact, way back when my own DCs were babies, in the 1990s, cornstarch baby powder was sold as a safe alternative to the problematic talc baby powder.

This is not some bizarre proposition. Court cases against talc manufacturers have been going on for years.

modern formulations that do not include actual talc and so avoid the possible contamination with asbestos are thought to be safe.

There was “talk” about the link in the 90s when my kids were born. I only ever used it occasionally on my kids feet in the swimming pool changing rooms as every other parent was using it everywhere. Obviously now wishing I hadn’t.
I don’t understand why you’d use it now. Do we know whether cornstarch is safe to breathe in?
im pretty sure that news report said the formulation only changed fairly recently because I actually have a really old bottle in the back of the cupboard which I told DH we need to find and chuck out

I wouldn’t use it. It was advised not to by friends and family when I had my children 10+ years ago.

What do you actually use it for? I don’t get what it’s for. Never used it on my kids.

I read a tip on here that it’s good to get wet sand off your feet at the beach, but otherwise I don’t get what it’s for.

I wouldn’t use it and didn’t - not because of historic concerns but because of the powder in lungs thing and, it’s not necessary.