Floor Varnish And Pregnancy

The floors were finished on a wednesday and we returned to the house 6 days later on a tuesday.

Floor varnish and pregnancy.

Most paint contains solvents petroleum based chemicals that can cause health problems if you inhale too much of them. You can breathe it in ingest it in foods or beverages or in some cases absorb it through your skin. Pregnancy is not the time to refinish furniture. The dust created by sanding existing floors and the fumes emitted by the high potency chemicals used on flooring are unsafe to inhale.

Refinishing furniture can expose you to solvents that may have risks for your baby. Ok so staying in the house with polyurethane fumes is definitely out. Dreaming of new hardwood floors before baby comes. Leaving the house for a week isn t really an option so i guess we ll look for an alternative to a polyurethane based finish.

The house still smells like fumes. Martinez tells webmd that if a woman takes the drug during pregnancy there is a 30 to 35 risk for major birth defects including complete absence of the thymus gland. To be safe let someone else do that job or wait to do the work yourself after your baby is born. If avoidance during pregnancy and breastfeeding is not possible.

The simplest and safest option if you re pregnant is to get someone else do the varnishing or save it until after your baby s born. It s best to limit your exposure to paint and paint fumes while you re pregnant. It s probably best that you don t varnish wood when you re pregnant just in case. You can do it but the best advice is to pack up your pregnant self and go to a hotel while the work is being completed by someone else like a licensed contractor.

Ask someone else to mix them for you. We re trying to match the finish in the hallway which i m sure was done with a polyurethane finish so hopefully we can get close using a different finish. These solvents might be in the old finish you sand off or the new stain polyurethane or paint that you apply. I am 3 months pregnant and am very concerned about exposure to.

Chemical exposure can occur in a variety of ways. Increase ventilation as much as possible. At the moment it s not known exactly how the chemicals and solvents used to strip and varnish wood may affect your unborn baby. Avoid directly mixing resins if at all possible.

Research that has looked at paint exposure during pregnancy has not shown consistent results.