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Lead poisoning: protecting children, the blood lead test, and lead at home
For parents, grandparents and anyone raising or looking after a young child. CDC says no safe level of lead in a child’s blood has been found, that most children with lead in their blood show no signs, and that childhood lead poisoning is preventable. This page passes on, by name, what CDC’s lead pages say: who should get a blood lead test and what the number means, what lead does and who is most at risk, old paint, dust and soil, water and baby formula, and the candies, spices, remedies, toys and jobs that can bring lead home. It builds the words to say to a doctor’s office, a landlord, a water provider or the health department, and prints a card for the results.
A word with a dotted line under it, like this, opens its official definition, quoted from a U.S. government glossary.
Right now
- A child swallowed something and is very sick, has trouble breathing, has a seizure or is hard to wake: call 911. For anything swallowed, Poison Help is 1-800-222-1222 (from this site’s poisoning page).
- Think a child has been around lead? CDC says talk to the child’s health care provider about a blood lead test. Most children with lead in their blood have no obvious symptoms.
- Peeling paint in a home built before 1978? Keep children away from it and wet-mop the dust (CDC). If you rent, ask your landlord to have the home checked (CDC).
- Worried about the water? Use only cold tap water for drinking, cooking and baby formula; boiling does not remove lead (CDC).
More help
- Children’s health on this site: every page for a baby or child · When it might be a poisoning.
- Renting: Letters to your landlord. Food: When you need food (WIC, SNAP).
- No insurance: When you need a doctor and can’t pay. Pregnant: Pregnant, or with a new baby.
- All our free tools.
Looking after a baby or child? The pages on this site for a baby or child, on one list.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No doctor or nurse has reviewed it. The facts were read on October 14, 2026 on CDC’s childhood lead poisoning prevention pages on cdc.gov: About Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention (updated August 21, 2025), Lead Exposure Symptoms and Complications (August 27, 2026), Testing for Lead Poisoning in Children (March 11, 2026), People at Increased Risk for Childhood Lead Poisoning (reviewed August 25, 2026), Preventing Childhood Lead Poisoning (June 12, 2024), the pages on lead in paint (July 30, 2024), drinking water (August 20, 2025), soil (August 27, 2026), foods, cosmetics and medicines and consumer products (August 20, 2025) and jobs and hobbies (June 13, 2024), How to Prevent Lead Poisoning in Children (reviewed August 25, 2026), CDC’s National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week page (for the National Lead Information Center line), and CDC’s Spanish sheet Infórmese (August 8, 2025; the ammonia and bleach warning). Poison Help (1-800-222-1222) and the 911 line come from this site’s own poisoning page. Ours: keeping the number, date and kind of each test, keeping a product to show the provider, putting a request to a landlord in writing, and the order of the steps. What we left out: CDC’s clinical guidance for providers, national counts, any state’s testing or housing rules, the brand of sindoor CDC names, and medicine names. This page saves nothing and loads no trackers.