What’s in your mattress? The Washington Post reported that “….Of the nearly 80,000 chemicals regularly bought and sold today, according to the National Academy of Sciences, fewer than 10% have been tested for their capacity to cause cancer or do other damage." Dust mites, also common in mattresses, trigger asthma and other respiratory illnesses. 

Chemicals

Many chemicals used in conventional mattress manufacturing today have proven negative effects on health. Flame retardants such as PBDE’s (polybrominated diphenyl ethers in use until 2004), boric acid and antimony are highly toxic. Potent insecticides are often sprayed on mattress materials. If you hear that a mattress has been “treated for dust mites”, that means the materials have been sprayed or were soaked in an insecticide solution.

Other common mattress additives such as formaldehyde, TDI (toluene di-isocyanate), styrene, butadiene, and other petroleum derivatives may have worrisome long-term effects, particularly on the developing brains of children.

This is why we also make the Savvy Baby, our organic crib mattress.

The proliferation of such chemicals in the environment and in our homes has been called “A Silent Pandemic”.

Synthetic chemicals may make mattresses comfortable, easy to manufacture or cheaper but, in our view, this cannot justify the potential damage to our health. Research has shown that all of these chemicals wind up in our bodies after eight hours of breathing and full-body contact, and what we do manage to discharge finds its way into the environment.

Allergens

Allergens are a significant health issue with conventional mattresses and pillows. Dust mites set up housekeeping inside most mattresses, and their droppings trigger allergic responses such as nasal congestion, headaches, and asthma attacks.

Mold, mildew, and fungi also cause breathing problems and can worsen asthma. One alternative is to swaddle every mattress and pillow with plastic-based (petrochemical) “allergy covers”, but every time these are removed for washing the dust mite droppings can escape into the air. A better choice is to get a naturally hypoallergenic latex mattress that won’t harbor dust mites in the first place.