Pregnant

Pregnant? How I Handle Receipts and Shipping Labels Without Stressing About BPA

I remember the exact moment. I was sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor, surrounded by cardboard boxes, packing tape, and a stack of old shipping labels I’d peeled off last month’s deliveries. My daughter was napping, I was twenty-two weeks pregnant, and I was trying to resell a baby carrier that she’d barely used. I printed out the shipping label for the buyer, then reached for a receipt from a nearby pile to double-check the buyer’s zip code.

And I froze. Because the receipt had that glossy, slightly slippery feel. The same feel as the shipping label. I’d just read an article on my phone about bisphenol A, or BPA, in thermal paper. I knew about BPA in plastic water bottles and canned food linings. But receipts? I hadn’t thought about those.

I looked down at my hands. I’d just finished applying hand sanitizer after opening the mail. The thought hit me somewhere between my chest and my stomach: if sanitary, I just smeared that stuff all over my skin, and then I touched these labels.

Here’s what I’ve learned since that afternoon, and it’s not something anyone ever mentioned during my first pregnancy or any of the prenatal appointments.

Thermal paper is the paper used for most store receipts, and also for many shipping labels printed by label printers. It’s coated with a chemical that reacts to heat, which is why it feels so smooth. That coating often contains BPA or its cousin BPS. When you handle it, the compound can transfer onto your skin, especially if your skin is moist—from hand sanitizer, lotion, sweat, or even just a few minutes of holding a coffee cup. And in pregnancy, then it can potentially cross the placenta.

The first thing I did was text my friend Dana, who works as a labor and delivery nurse. She sent back a voice note: “Don’t panic. But also, don’t treat it like nothing.” She’d seen a presentation about occupational exposure in retail workers. Cashiers who handle thousands of receipts a day have measurably higher BPA levels than other workers. The concern is that BPA is an endocrine disruptor. It mimics estrogen. For a developing baby, that matters. Researchers are still trying to figure out exactly how much, but the general advice is to minimize exposure whenever possible.

So there I was, on my kitchen floor, with a baby carrier, a label, and a new worry.

I didn’t throw everything out. I didn’t cancel the sale. What I did, over the next few days, was make a small set of changes that honestly took about fifteen minutes of effort.

First, I bought a box of nitrile gloves from the pharmacy and tucked it next to my label printer. I use the gloves when I’m packing a shipment or handling a stack of old receipts. The brand doesn’t matter, just good quality ones. They’re cheap, about eight dollars for a box, and they last me months.

Second, I started washing my hands instead of using sanitizer before and after touching any thermal paper. Coconut oil soap, warm water, thirty seconds. I read that the friction of washing is what actually gets the residue off. Hand sanitizer doesn’t remove it. In fact, sanitizer might make it worse by dissolving the paper coating and increasing skin absorption.

That one caught me off guard. I’d been so careful about hand sanitizer everywhere else, especially after trips to the grocery store. Now I was learning that a squirt of Purell right before tearing off a receipt was probably the worst possible combination.

The third thing I did was adjust how I handle receipts when I’m out. I now let cashiers drop the receipt into the bag instead of handing it to me directly. If they hand it to me, I take it but immediately place it on a hard surface—the little bagging shelf or a counter—rather than holding it while I do anything else. I don’t let my daughter hold receipts anymore. She’s two. She loves the little bit of paper, and she always puts it in her mouth. I just tell her no, clearly, and hand her a napkin or a book instead.

For shipping labels, I also started using my phone’s barcode more often when returning packages. Many UPS and FedEx locations let you show a QR code on your screen and they scan it directly onto the box. You don’t have to touch a printed label at all. That’s been a game changer for returns. When I do need a paper label, I print it at home with the gloves on, then tape it onto the box. I’ve also taken to cutting off the worst parts of a label—the areas with heavy print—since the BPA is concentrated there, but honestly, I’m not sure if that’s making a real difference. It just feels better.

A friend of mine who still works as a teacher once told me that she never thought about receipts until she was bulk-buying classroom supplies and had to fill out a reimbursement form every month. She’d collect a folder full of receipts from office supply stores and grading supply catalogs. Now she wears a pair of thin cotton gloves, the kind you’d use for archival work, when she sorts them. She also started requesting e-receipts from all the big retailers. Most of them can email receipts automatically, and for reimbursements, she takes a photo and attaches it to the form. The school accepted it after she explained why. No one argued.

That stuck with me. We don’t have to wait for companies to change their paper. We can change our habits.

Now, I want to be honest, because this is exactly the kind of thing that gets blown out of proportion online. I’m not suggesting anyone panic about every single sales slip from a lemonade stand. The risk is cumulative and occupational. A teacher who handles a handful of receipts during school supply season is not the same as a grocery cashier facing hundreds per shift. I’m also not suggesting you get paranoid about touching your mail or books, because those aren’t thermal paper. Glossy magazine pages are different. The main thing is just to be aware of what you’re touching and to break the habit of touching your face or your mouth after handling the stuff.

Our kitchen table is also our packing station. So I made one more adjustment. I put a small glass jar next to the fruit bowl, and that’s where any stray receipts go. At the end of the week, I recycle them. My husband used to stuff them into his wallet and then dump them on the counter to sort through later. Now he just tosses them in the jar. No lectures, no big conversation. It’s simply easier.

I still don’t know if this matters in the long run. The research is genuinely uncertain. Some studies suggest that even BPS, which was introduced as a BPA-free alternative, has similar effects. So the whole situation feels a bit wobbly. But that’s okay. I’m a former teacher. I’ve learned that when you can’t control the big picture, you adjust the little things you actually touch.

Yesterday, I was packing up another order—a stack of board books I listed for two dollars each. I put on my gloves, peeled the label off the thermal paper backing, and taped it to the bubble mailer. My daughter came over and asked what I was doing. “Making a package,” I said. She patted the mailer with her bare hand. I didn’t grab her hand or wipe it down. She’s not the one writing her thesis on endocrine disruptors. She’s two. She’s allowed to touch things.

But I did wash both our hands before we ate lunch.

I’m thirty weeks now. We’ve set up the crib, and the old carrier went to its new family weeks ago. The glove box is almost empty. I keep meaning to buy another, but I haven’t yet. In the meantime, I’ve gotten better at just using my phone for returns, and when I do get a receipt, I fold it once and place it in the jar. It’s just what I do now. Like rinsing out cans before recycling, or wiping down the grocery cart handle. Not a grand solution, just a small one. And sometimes small is enough.

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