Before I became a new mama, I wanted to do everything right for my child.  I ate properly and healthfully.  I watched my weight gain.  I researched all of the issues, both pro and cons, to ensure that I was getting the whole story, and then I could make my decisions.  The big stories during my pregnancy were BPA, phthalates, parabens, vaccines and other potential toxins.  Unfortunately, most of us were exposed to and probably filled with BP, phthalates and parabens in our lifetimes.  We just didn’t know about the dangers of these products.  But I wanted to protect my child from as much exposure as possible.  So we looked into organic and natural products for our baby.  We researched websites on all kinds of products.

The most important decision was what should our baby sleep in.  Most of the products that we could find were filled with plastic parts or other potentially toxic components.  Plus we liked modern design, and most baby furniture is hideously ugly.  (They’re only now starting to carry modern furniture in baby stores but some of the lines are not well constructed.)  The biggest decision we had to make was what type of mattress would we use.  We went out and looked at the mattresses.  Most mattresses were vinyl covered (probably pthalate central) and used all of these chemical flame retardants.  We did not want that soaking into our precious baby’s skin.  We started searching the internet for organic mattresses, trying to find out information on chemicals, components and origination.  The information was not very informative when we were looking.  You couldn’t find out specific information about all of the components.  Finally, we went through a local vendor who had a supplier that produced organic mattresses from organic cotton and wool.  It was a very time consuming process because thorough and adequate information is not available.  The New York Times recently highlighted this issue in its article “Worry-Free Dreams, Environmentally Correct Bed”.

Although this article discusses adults’ concerns about having a less toxic environment for themselves to sleep in, the issues remain the same.  These mattress companies make a lot of money.  We went through many mattresses and spent a lot of money, trying to find one that would help my husband’s back problem.  We didn’t think about these things for us and maybe we should have.  But we didn’t know.

Essentially, more information should be provided to all prospective buyers of what is contained in a mattress.  More thorough standards should also be determined before a bed company can call themselves organic or natural.  We should have a right to know what we may be getting in our sleep and make the decisions what is best for us.