 Just because mothers have a certain level of industrial pollutants in their fat tissue or bloodstream, doesn't necessarily reflect what they're passing on to their child. So researchers last year decided to measure pesticide levels right out of umbilical cord blood at delivery. As soon as you cut the cord, they squirt a little in a vial before they tie it off. 318 mothers studied, and even now, decades after it was banned, almost all umbilical cord blood samples, 95% showed detectable DDT residues. Not exactly the first thing we want to be passing along to our newborns. The most common DDT residue found was a derivative called DDE, which was found most closely associated with the mother's consumption of three types of food. Because organochlorine pesticides are attracted to fat, they accumulate in foods of animal origin. And fish and dairy products were associated with the presence of DDE in umbilical cord serum.