CHEM Trust sat down with author Helen Jukes, to discuss her book ‘Mother Animal’, a personal memoir that also combines insights from evolutionary biology, zoology and toxicology.

One of CHEM Trust’s key focuses is endocrine disrupting chemicals, and they feature a lot in ‘Mother Animal’ – could you tell us a bit about that?

They were where I began, because so many of the processes connected to motherhood are complex, hormonally driven processes. So when we think about fertility, pregnancy, birth and lactation – all of these physical processes rely on very fine-tuned hormonal processes that are potentially disrupted by these chemicals.

How did the idea for the book come about?

The book moves between different fields of research and reflection, and there’s a lot of my own experience in it. The idea first started in pregnancy, when I felt really struck by the limited narratives that we have to describe the felt experience of pregnancy and motherhood. I started looking around for stories that might better reflect my experience, and I fell into reading about stories from the animal world, and how pregnancy, birth and parenting happens among other species. I very quickly found that the animal kingdom is full of a far more diverse range of experiences and ways of producing and raising offspring than I’d ever imagined.

When did chemical pollution come into it?

I was reading about some of our go-to mothering animals like elephants and orangutans, but also reading about cockroaches, spiders and burrowing beetles. It was through the course of that research that I fell into reading about pollution. I found myself reading about research studies that had been done, that had found synthetic substances in breast milk, cord blood, amniotic fluid, fetal lungs and livers, in humans, and other wildlife as well.

Why did you want to write about this topic?

I felt like I really wanted to start a new conversation around motherhood and around the maternal body. To bring a clear-sightedness to how we look at mothers and understand and talk about the mothering experience. To discover in those first weeks after birth that my body was actively shunting chemicals, that maybe my mother had passed me, into my breastfeeding infant, was such a shock in comparison to stories we normally tell. I couldn’t believe it? And why did I not learn of these things before.

What do you hope people take from the book?

I really wanted to clear a space for us to start new conversations around what it means to mother, and be a caregiver and nest – what it means in this world, and at this time. I can’t any longer see the mother as this solo being, locked in her small, little nest. I have to think of the mother as someone who is contaminated and vulnerable and constantly engaged in relations and interactions with her wider world.

One of the ways that that perspective shifted for me, was partly about realising the ways that my body was polluted, but also thinking about how the decisions that I make within my home are affecting nests and mothers and offspring elsewhere. I throw nappies into my bin, and where do they go? They go into landfills, rivers, and seas. So how do we build a world where our lives and our homes are causing as little harm as they can?

How can people find out more about your work?

The book was out at the end of February. I’m on Instagram, I’m ‘helen.jukes’ – that’s my handle. And I’m also doing events across the UK through the Spring and Summer, so come and find me!

CHEM Trust and EDC Free coalition partners are calling for quicker identification of EDCs and better controls for protecting people and wildlife.

Read more about EDCs here and advice on how to reduce the risks from EDCs for parents here.

Watch some clips from the discussion on our Instagram page here.

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