When it comes to baby bottles, Danielle Ouellette knows what she doesn’t want. She reads packages in search of “BPA-free.”

“Do I look for it? Sure I do,” the Lynnwood woman said Thursday.

She was shopping in the baby aisle of Everett’s Target store with her 6-month-old daughter, Ember.

As a young mom, Ouellette knows about bisphenol A, a chemical widely used in hard plastic bottles and the linings of some food and beverage cans. Ouellette has already banned bisphenol A as much as possible from Ember’s life. Soon, that ban will be law.

Washington’s Legislature has approved a statewide ban on the chemical in baby bottles, water bottles and other containers. The state Senate voted 38-9 Monday in support of the ban, which already won House approval.

Gov. Chris Gregoire is expected to sign the measure, said Ivy Sager-Rosenthal, campaign director of the Washington Toxics Coalition. The Seattle-based organization pushed for the ban, which brings Washington in line with Connecticut, Minnesota and Wisconsin in acting against the chemical.

The state ban on children’s containers would start July 1, 2011; the sports bottle ban would come a year later, on July 1, 2012.

“The good news is that people are waking up and starting to understand the concern around BPA, and so are manufacturers. Many of the major baby bottle manufacturers have stopped using it,” Sager-Rosenthal said.

Bisphenol A, according to a Washington Post report, is a synthetic that in the human body mimics the hormone estrogen. It’s used to harden plastic and in resin for some can linings. Some scientific evidence has linked it to reproductive abnormalities, increased risks of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. “BPA is a synthetic sex hormone,” said Sager-Rosenthal, adding that some studies have even tied the chemical to obesity and hyperactivity.

On Jan. 15, Joshua Sharfstein, deputy director of the Food and Drug Administration, said the agency has enough concern about BPA to recommend that the public take “reasonable steps” to reduce exposure. In the past, the U.S. government maintained the safety of bisphenol A. Canada declared bisphenol A a toxin and banned it from baby bottles in 2008.

Dr. Michael Neufeld is medical director of the newborn intensive care unit at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett’s Pavilion for Women &Children. He explained Thursday why the concerns focus on infants.

“With exposure to the same amount, a baby is going to be exposed to more than an adult,” Neufeld said. “And the baby is still developing. The risk is greater because those organ systems are developing.”

Bisphenol A is an endocrine disrupter that acts like hormones in the body, he said. “It actually is estrogen,” Neufeld said. “It hasn’t been proven in humans, but animal studies suggest there are problems.”

The safest choice is for babies to be breast-fed, especially in the first four months of life, Neufeld said. He also said that powdered formula has less of the chemical than liquid, and that heating plastic bottles can leach out chemicals.

Most plastic baby bottles on the shelves at Target on Thursday were labeled BPA-free. Glass doesn’t contain the chemical.

The first I ever heard of bisphenol A was when my daughter insisted I stop drinking water from an old Nalgene bottle she had given me as a gift. I did, switching to a metal bottle. Nalgene now sells BPA-free plastic bottles and stainless steel bottles.

On Thursday, I found plenty of water bottles free of the chemical, among them a $9.99 soft plastic Polar Bottle at Sports Authority and two options at Starbucks, a $10.95 BPA-free plastic bottle and a $15.95 stainless steel bottle.

Recycling codes on the bottom of plastic containers offer clues to whether they contain bisphenol A. The Washington Post reported that generally, plastics marked 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 aren’t likely to have the chemical, while some marked with 3 or 7 may be made with it.

“Hopefully, consumer demand is really driving the markets,” said Sager-Rosenthal, of the Washington Toxics Coalition. The consumer activist said BPA in the linings of some canned foods and drinks is also a target. “We tell people to try to avoid canned foods, and eat fresh,” she said.

“It’s a real problem,” Dr. Neufeld said. “We’re really looking at things to make sure they don’t have these chemicals.”

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.