Could babies be poisoned by bottled water?

Parents who use bottled water to make up baby milk could be poisoning their children.

Some brands contain levels of uranium that could harm a developing child, a shock official study has found.

They are Buxton - one of the UK’s top sellers - Caffe Nero, Radnor Hills, Rocwell, St Yorre and San Pellegrino.

Some have four times the amount of uranium considered the safe limit for a baby.

Many families have switched from tap water to bottled varieties, believing them to be better and healthier.

Sales have doubled in five years to around two billion litres (480million gallons), worth an estimated £1.2billion.

But bottled waters pick up minerals from the rock they pass through. These can include uranium, a heavy metal which is particularly toxic to the kidneys.

Details of the contamination came from the Government’s Committee on Toxicity.

It said the Food Standards Agency has estimated that using some natural mineral waters to reconstitute baby formula could mean infants receiving more uranium than the daily limit set by the World Health Organisation. The report says uranium is generally found in

water from a granite source. It is weakly radioactive, but radioactivity levels are considered too low to be a health risk.

The real concern is the damage uranium can cause to the kidneys.

The Department of Health and the National Childbirth Trust already advise mothers to use tap water - boiled and then cooled - to make up bottle feed.

Research has consistently shown that breast milk is best for babies, but some women cannot breastfeed, or choose not to, while others combine it with formula milk. The FSA tested 170 samples of bottled water from 15 brands. All met the WHO guideline level for adults, which is 15 micrograms of uranium per litre.

But 23 samples from six brands exceeded the recommended limit for babies of 3.2 micrograms.

The highest level was in water sold at Caffe Nero coffee shops, although it seems unlikely that mothers would use this to make up baby formula.

A spokesman for the firm said its water comes from a guaranteed and respected source in Italy. He insisted it met WHO standards on uranium.

The owners of Buxton, Parisbased Nestle Waters, challenged the findings of the study. A spokesman said: ‘We are the world leader in bottled water and experts in the field. Buxton is in line with WHO guidelines and European directives in terms of uranium.’

The company does not recommend Buxton for baby formula, but this is due to the high mineral and sodium content, not uranium levels.

Buxton is the UK’s fifth biggest-selling brand, behind Volvic, Vittel, Highland Spring and Evian. Brian Quinn, boss of Northern Ireland-based Rocwell, also challenged accuracy of the FSA research.

He said: ‘I am surprised by these findings. We test for uranium and it has never shown up as an issue. I can assure you that our water is very suitable to be used for making up baby formula and in baby foods.’

Radnor Hills said it does not recommend its water for babies.

Experts said the FSA study gives only a snapshot of the uranium in the water at a particular time. Levels could be higher or lower if the same survey was done today.

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