New-Age Parenting: Clean Ingredients, Conscious Choices
Parenting today looks nothing like it did a generation ago. While the love and concern for our children remain timeless, the way we express that care has evolved drastically. Despite having access to information, many parents still fall into the trap of unconscious buying, grabbing whatever baby product is trending or comes with the flashiest marketing, without reading the label or understanding what's inside.
The choices we make, either shampoos, lotions or the laundry detergents or feeding bottles, all have a direct impact on your baby's health and growth. And that's why today's parents are waking up to a new approach of conscious parenting fueled by clean ingredients. The Shift Towards the Clean Ingredients in Baby Products
This shift, the 'Clean Ingredients' is no longer just a trend but a new benchmark for safety and transparency. But what does 'clean' truly mean? At its core, clean means products made without any harmful ingredients like alcohol, artificial fragrances, parabens, sulfates or dyes, all of which are known for irritating babies' sensitive skin. It's now more about products offering no misleading claims.
This trend goes beyond baby skincare. Informed parents are rethinking all baby-related products. Here's what they are now paying attention to: Skincare: Baby lotions, body wash, shampoo, oils and creams that are unscented, pH-balanced and made with natural or plant-based ingredients.
Baby lotions, body wash, shampoo, oils and creams that are unscented, pH-balanced and made with natural or plant-based ingredients. Hygiene: Buy cleansers and unscented wipes that are safe enough for everyday use.
Buy cleansers and unscented wipes that are safe enough for everyday use. Diapering: Choosing biodegradable diapers that are gentle on baby skin.
Choosing biodegradable diapers that are gentle on baby skin. Laundry: Use mild, allergen-free detergents having no dyes or artificial brighteners.
Use mild, allergen-free detergents having no dyes or artificial brighteners. Feeding: Look for bottles and feeding cups that are BPA-free and safe for regular use.
Numerous Indian brands are embracing this transparent skincare approach and parents are following. Among them, Mother Sparsh has emerged as a trusted name, offering a thoughtfully crafted range of baby care products that cater to parents seeking uncompromising safety, purity and authenticity. They reflect a deeper commitment to informed, wellness-focused parenting. Mother Sparsh Empowering Parents to Make Conscious Choices
Why does all this matter? Because a baby's skin is about 30% thinner than an adult's, it is more vulnerable. The lotion after bath time? The detergent that lingers on clothes? All of these can make their way into your baby's system.
That's why modern parenting is also about intentional buying, not impulse buying. It's about researching products, checking ingredients and refusing to trust a brand just because it's well-known or popular on social media.
Here's how Mother Sparsh is helping parents make informed choices: Unscented: Their Simply Unscented baby skincare range (including lotion, shampoo, body wash and more) caters to baby sensitive skin. Having no added fragrances, it's enriched with natural oatmeal to help soothe and calm delicate skin.
Their baby skincare range (including lotion, shampoo, body wash and more) caters to baby sensitive skin. Having no added fragrances, it's enriched with natural oatmeal to help soothe and calm delicate skin. Clinically Proven: Their 99% Pure Water Unscented Baby Wipes are as good as cotton and water to prevent diaper rash and gentle enough for daily use.
Their are as good as cotton and water to prevent diaper rash and gentle enough for daily use. Tradition-Backed Natural Care: Their products are inspired by age-old remedies, carefully formulated with time-tested, natural ingredients to deliver effective, baby-safe results. Take, for instance, their Colic Relief Tummy Roll-On, made with hing, saunf, and pudina to soothe discomfort naturally, or the After Bite Turmeric Balm for mosquito & insect relief.
In this category, where trust is everything, Mother Sparsh offers a clear choice for parents ready to move beyond marketing claims and into rational decision-making. How to Avoid Misleading Information
In the baby care industry crowded with buzzwords, it's easy to be misled by terms like 'natural,' 'organic' or 'baby-safe.' These aren't always verified.
Here's how to shop smart: Don't follow hype: Not every 'hero ingredient' is baby-safe.
Not every 'hero ingredient' is baby-safe. Read beyond the tagline because the ingredient list reveals the true formulation.
because the ingredient list reveals the true formulation. Products designed for adult skin concerns aren't suitable for babies.
Rely upon the right claims. Use trusted resources to verify claims and ingredient safety.
By doing your reading, you protect your baby from excessive irritants and avoid wasting money on products that don't add value. Role of Pediatrician Guidance
Before adding a new skincare product into your baby's routine, if in doubt, always get advice from your paediatrician or any medical expert, especially if your child has allergies or skin disorders like eczema. Conclusion
New-age parenting isn't just about perfection but also about awareness. Clean ingredients and conscious choices are no longer luxury concepts, they're essential steps in raising healthy, happy babies in a safer world.
As a parent, you have the choice to be mindful in your purchase for your baby's wellbeing and your clean parenting journey. Explore Mother Sparsh range of unscented baby care essentials designed to support you in this journey.
So stay informed. Ask questions. And choose what's best, not just what's popular.
Because parenting today? It's not just about love. It's about intentional love.
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Parenting today looks nothing like it did a generation ago. While the love and concern for our children remain timeless, the way we express that care has evolved drastically. Despite having access to information, many parents still fall into the trap of unconscious buying, grabbing whatever baby product is trending or comes with the flashiest marketing, without reading the label or understanding what's inside. The choices we make, either shampoos, lotions or the laundry detergents or feeding bottles, all have a direct impact on your baby's health and growth. And that's why today's parents are waking up to a new approach of conscious parenting fueled by clean ingredients. The Shift Towards the Clean Ingredients in Baby Products This shift, the 'Clean Ingredients' is no longer just a trend but a new benchmark for safety and transparency. But what does 'clean' truly mean? 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'It Was Rotten Eggs' Although the FDA has been giving companies a way around import bans since at least 2013, the internal process was so secretive that many current and former FDA officials said they have no idea how many exemptions have been granted or for what drugs. In an email, the agency said it did not maintain a comprehensive list. Even two high-level FDA staff members who worked on drug shortage challenges for the agency said in interviews they had never heard of the exemptions. Congress required the FDA in 2012 to provide specific information every year about how and when the agency relaxed its rules for errant drugmakers to prevent shortages. But the FDA did not mention exemptions to import bans until 2024 — and only then ProPublica uncovered the frequent use of exemptions by searching for the 'import alert' list published on the FDA's website that names factories banned from the U.S. marketplace. 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'Even though the facility sucks, it's getting tested more often and it's having independent eyes on it.' But current and former FDA inspectors said those safety measures require trusting the vigilance of companies that were banned, at least in part, for providing unreliable or deceptive test results to the government or failing to investigate reports about drugs with contaminants or other quality concerns. The FDA could have done its own routine testing of the exempted drugs but chose not to. The agency said in an email that it tests the drugs using a 'risk-based approach' but would not provide ProPublica with any information about which drugs have been tested and what the results were. Woodcock said testing was expensive and budgets were tight. She acknowledged that regularly assessing the exempted drugs for quality or safety concerns 'would have enhanced our confidence … and made everyone more comfortable.' The European Union, by contrast, requires drugs made in India and China to be checked for quality on EU soil. And the U.S. Department of Defense is conducting its 'If you don't know about the quality of the product, why are you letting it in?' said Murray Lumpkin, the FDA's former deputy commissioner for international programs, who left the agency in 2014 before most of the exemptions were granted. Beyond the lack of testing, the FDA didn't actively look for patterns of harm among the exempted drugs in its ProPublica's analysis of that data found thousands of reports both before and after the factories were given a pass to sidestep import bans. The reports described unexpected cases of cardiac arrest, blurred vision, choking, vertigo and kidney injuries, among other issues — and in some instances identified specific concerns about how the drugs were made. One person who took Intas' clonazepam, a sedative and epilepsy drug, reported getting 'brain zaps' and bright blue teeth from the coating of dye on the drug. The FDA received the complaint the same month the agency exempted the drug from the import ban. Even before the FDA exempted Intas' antidepressant bupropion, consumers reported that it made them sick, wasn't always effective and had an abnormal odor, which pharmacists and others say can happen when an inactive ingredient breaks down. 'It was rotten eggs,' Nari Miller, a geologist in California who took the pills in 2022 and had severe stomach pain, told ProPublica. 'I opened it and smelled it when I got home and it was awful.' Intas said it could not respond to specific complaints and that all drugs have side effects. 'Intas and Accord pay attention to each and every adverse event report,' the company said, adding, 'Accord and Intas are committed to continuing to bring safe and effective medicines to patients.' In its statement, the FDA said the database is monitored weekly for new reports in general. Woodcock, however, acknowledged the reports about exempted drugs, ideally, 'would be under much more scrutiny.' Excerpt from an FDA inspection of the Sun Pharma factory that led to an import ban Credit:Animation by Lisa Larson-Walker/ProPublica Too Big to Fail Decisions made by the FDA decades ago gave rise to the use of exemptions and the risks that now confront the American public. When new brand-name drugs come to market, they are protected by patents and exclusive sales rights that make them generally expensive. When patents expire, generic drug companies rush in to make their own versions, which are supposed to be equivalent to the brand. Generics are often far cheaper, and insurance companies typically insist that patients use them. In the 2000s, as the cost of brand-name drugs soared, the FDA began to approve large numbers of generics. The agency, however, gave hundreds of those approvals to foreign manufacturers that had been in trouble before, companies well known to the inspectors working to stamp out safety and quality breakdowns at overseas factories, ProPublica found. The FDA granted Sun Pharma alone more than 250 approvals for generic drugs since the late 2000s, when the company started amassing violations, records show. The agency's decisions helped to transform the company from a local provider in India to one of the leading exporters of medications to the United States, with The approvals kept coming as inspectors continued to More problems were found at a factory that Sun had acquired in Detroit, where the diabetes drug metformin was contaminated with metal scrapings. The rapid expansion of Sun and other foreign drugmakers set off new alarms among inspectors, their supervisors and advisers to Woodcock. 'In a rational system, you would have said, 'This company is not producing properly, so let's not approve any more of their drugs,' said William Hubbard, former FDA deputy commissioner for policy, planning and legislation. 'The agency in a sense kind of let this happen.' Ajaz Hussain, the former deputy director of an FDA office that oversaw pharmaceutical science, said that after leaving the agency and becoming a consultant, he made his concerns known in meetings with Woodcock and others. 'They can't manufacture it. Why do you keep approving it?' Hussain recalled in an interview with ProPublica. 'I said, 'Wake up.' … But they didn't listen.' Hussain in 2012 went to work for Wockhardt, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in India, but quit eight months later after he said he told his superiors about manufacturing failures in the company's factories. Although The FDA could have denied generic drug applications — nothing in the law prohibits the agency from saying no to companies with spotty track records. In an email, the FDA said it considers a company's history and conducts inspections in some cases before issuing approvals. Woodcock said the agency knew which factories were poor performers but feared being sued by companies blocked from introducing new drugs based on past behavior. Instead, she said that she tried to convince drugmakers to invest in equipment and practices that would turn out higher-quality drugs. 'We had many meetings about this, and we agonized about all these problems,' she said. But little changed. Shortages vs. Quality In 2008, dozens of Americans were killed by contaminated blood thinner from China. So when Margaret Hamburg was appointed commissioner of the FDA in the aftermath of the crisis, she Her efforts ran headlong into what would become the worst drug shortage in modern history. By 2010, cancer drugs were scarce. So were the drugs on hospital crash carts. In all, more than 200 critical medications were in short supply. Razor-thin profit margins had limited the number of companies that were willing to make generic drugs. And the FDA's enforcement overseas had forced some manufacturing lines to temporarily shut down, which exacerbated the problem. LeRoy Hubley, whose wife and son died after taking a tainted generic blood thinner from China, testified before Congress in 2008. The crisis helped prompt the FDA, under Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, to ramp up inspections of overseas drugmakers. Credit:Brendan Smialowski/Bloomberg News At the time, the FDA had a small team focused on shortages that operated on the edges of Woodcock's 4,000-person Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. With the pressure on, Woodcock elevated the team in 2010 to report directly to her deputy, a move that gave those staff members a commanding voice at the highest levels of the agency, several former staffers told ProPublica. After 16 years in top leadership roles, Woodcock was formidable enough to force a culture change. Standing 5'2' in FDA conference rooms where she had often been disregarded as the lone woman, Woodcock had fought for her status — sometimes, she said, pushed nearly to tears with frustration. The board-certified internist asserted her authority by wielding data, what she called 'brute force' and the soft persuasion of an occasional gift of an orchid, picked from her garden in suburban Maryland. By 2010, Woodcock had marshalled the center into a powerhouse with great independence — in many ways, outside the reach of the political whims of the commissioners who came and went. Those who worked with her over the years said despite her approachable manner, she fiercely guarded her territory. In the conference room next to Woodcock's office, the drug shortage staff began to weigh in whenever the FDA's compliance team moved to penalize wayward drugmakers because of bad inspections, according to several former FDA officials involved in the deliberations. Sometimes the small group would decide that a factory could no longer ship drugs to the United States and would try to get other manufacturers to make more. And other times, the group determined that exemptions from import bans were the only course. Discussions could be tense and often lasted for weeks. A former employee on the compliance team told ProPublica that they repeatedly argued to impose a total import ban on a foreign factory because they feared the drugs couldn't be trusted. They were left feeling uncomfortable about an exemption granted anyway — for a product that they would not use themselves. Without exemptions, Woodcock told ProPublica, Current and former FDA officials said the concessions became a yearslong practice rather than a stopgap measure and that the protections put in place by the agency were not sufficient. They question why Woodcock and her successor didn't do more to raise alarms with Congress or the public about the decision to rely on inadequate factories for critical drugs. Woodcock said she thought the exemptions were a symptom of larger issues involving the drug supply that the FDA had no control over — the agency, for example, can't force companies concerned about slim profit margins to produce generic drugs. Two former FDA commissioners told ProPublica they knew about the practice but were not included in the decision-making. Hamburg, who spent six years at the agency under the Obama administration, said the extent of the practice surprised her. 'Had I known that it was sort of an open-ended policy, I would have been disturbed,' she said. One of her successors, Stephen Hahn, appointed during President Donald Trump's first term, said more people should have been involved in the decisions. 'You're talking about a drug of questionable quality being brought into the country,' he said. Woodcock said she did not believe she needed their input. 'I didn't think in the individual circumstances it was necessary to elevate,' she said, 'because what could they do?' 'We Know What Was Found' In 2020, the billionaire founder of Sun Pharma joined a pivotal conference call with FDA compliance and investigative staff. Among other drugs, the plant produced at least 16 sterile injectables for the U.S. market, according to In 2018 and 2019, The company also had to On the call with the FDA, according to the agency official, Shanghvi assured the government that the Halol plant was turning out high-quality products. Yet, when the three investigators went back to the factory that scorching morning in 2022 for the surprise inspection, it was clear within days that the FDA would have to take swift action. Splitting up to check different parts of the plant, the inspectors quizzed workers about cleaning procedures and looked at disassembled equipment to see if it was contaminated with residue from old drugs. At one point, they spotted water leaking near areas where sterile drugs were made, an alarming observation because water can introduce contaminants capable of causing infections or even death. Digging through company records and test results, they found more evidence of quality problems, including how managers hadn't properly investigated a series of complaints about foreign material, specks, spots and stains in tablets. The 2022 FDA inspection report of Sun's Halol plant described metal particles in vials of injectable medication. Credit:Obtained by ProPublica. Highlighted by ProPublica. Several FDA employees familiar with the 'We know what was found,' said the FDA official who attended the meeting with Shanghvi. 'How could you trust [those] drugs?' Sun did not respond to questions about the recalls or its regulatory history with the FDA. In its 2023-24 The specific findings of the FDA's latest inspection of the Sun plant conducted this month have not yet been made public, and the company did not respond to a request for comment. To some current and former FDA officials and other experts, plugging a supply shortage with drugs that may be contaminated or ineffective is no solution at all. 'That might be helping a shortage but might be creating a new problem,' said Lumpkin, the former deputy commissioner. Last summer, a pair of FDA investigators arrived at another manufacturing plant in India that had a bustling production line. After more than a week at the Viatris factory, they left with a familiar list of safety and quality violations. In a statement to ProPublica, Viatris said it immediately worked to resolve the FDA's concerns. 'Patient safety remains our primary and unwavering focus,' Just before Christmas, the FDA banned the facility from exporting drugs. Then the agency gave the factory a pass, and four of its drugs are still bound for the United States.
