How Healthy Is Your Bedroom? Crib Mattresses, Bedding & Hidden Chemicals

In reality, safety regulations focus on specific issues like fire risk or choking hazards, and not really on long-term, low-level chemical exposure over years of use.

In the past, most chemicals used in consumer products have only been studied carefully after they became widely used.

Have we seen this pattern before? Yes, we have with lead and remember BPA.

And now we're hearing a lot about PFAS and forever chemicals.

So more and more, companies are asking whether we should be more proactive about reducing unnecessary exposures in baby products, and the companies are designing them as best as they can with the information we have.

One of the biggest concerns that I saw when I was researching for the Architectural Digest article was off-gassing.

That's when materials release small amounts of chemicals into the air over time.

And to my dear husband who might be listening, yes, our new bathroom wallpaper has been off-gassing for months, but we're old, so I think it's fine.

Babies spend a lot of hours sleeping with their faces right next to their mattress, so we may want to look more closely at what is being released into that breathing environment.

What is there?

The volatile organic compounds that are in, I mean, they're just in about everything.

It's carpet, paint, the desk that I'm sitting on.

So it's a matter of what that concentration is and what those chemicals are specifically.

Because again, there's a hundred different chemicals that go into making crib mattresses.

There's ones that you could look into, but like some of the common ones in crib mattresses are those phlegm retardant chemicals.

There's phthalates, there's PFAS, there's arsenic, there's antimony.

And all of these things are just wreak havoc on your child's overall development.

And it's permeating throughout that nursery.

A lot of times that door is closed, not having as many organic.

I've seen some like as of recent, they've had some really fancy like air purifiers come out.

And I think it's a great product if that's what you're ultimately like focused on.

But if you just started with healthier products for your baby, you wouldn't necessarily have to worry about what's in the air around them because those products aren't off gassing those like terrible chemicals.

I mean, if you've gotten a new mattress yourself as of recent, sometimes you have to let that air out for like three or four days.

That is what off gassing is, that smell.

Everyone used to be enamored with like, oh, that new car smell.