Is Reusing the Play-doh Safe in the Daycare?

The six daycares that participated in this study indicated that there is no regulation currently in place for the usage of play-dough in their daycare facilities. Play-dough can potentially accumulate and transport lead when played with. This vector has never been studied before in terms of being a route of lead exposure for children. This study aimed to determine whether or not playdough usage in daycares may be a hazard in terms of being a route of lead exposure for children.
Daycares in the Greater Vancouver were randomly selected based on convenience sampling. They were contacted by email and a follow up phone call to determine their eligibility. Play-dough was gathered in three time intervals from each daycare and analyzed semi-quantitatively. Three controls were also created to mimic the daycare’s play-dough usage, and to test whether the test kit could detect lead. The results showed that one of the daycares had lead levels ranging from 1-3ppm and one of the controls showed lead levels of 1-3ppm.
The test kits proved to be effective in determining lead based on the controls. One of the daycare’s play-dough had lead levels of 1-3ppm. Thus indicating that there is a possibility that play-dough can be a vector for transporting and accumulating lead. This study does have limitations in terms of the test kit used, and the lack of blinding of the researcher testing the samples.
The study was successful in generating an understanding of the potential link between play-dough usage and lead exposure for children. Therefore, the positive lead result found in one of the daycares can be used as a reference to guide future studies in this area.