question for co-sleeping mums

[bunny85]

Hi everyone

My baby is 3.5 months old and we co-sleep. I read a lot on Internet about adult mattresses and toxic nerve gases that are dangerous for babies but all the protective mattress toppers are only available for baby mattresses in crib size (from what I found). What can I do to protect my baby? What do other co-sleeping mums do? Is buying a whole new adult organic cotton mattress the only option? I hope not as they are very pricey

TIA

I would just stop reading the Internet if I were you!

The UK's flammability regulations do not require the use of flame retardant chemicals but most companies use them because they're the cheapest route to compliance. There is now a lot of evidence of the harmful effect on human health of flame retardant chemicals in products, and via house dust they get into babies' blood, mother's breast milk, pets etc.

If you can't afford a UK mattress without flame retardants you can quite legally buy from non-UK companies providing they supply from their own country (e.g. buy over the internet, delivered by post). Germany and Sweden are pretty safe bets since they are opposed to the use of flame retardants in products. You can always ask if they use them but it's unlikely, mainly because EU law does not require it.

In 2014, the US changed its flammability law to exclude flame retardants, after a long campaign by US firefighters (who had discovered they were getting more cancers than normal), green scientists and the Chicago Tribune. The same flame retardant companies supply the US and the UK.

You may be interested to know that the UK government published new proposals in August 2014 that would have allowed manufacturers to instantly reduce flame retardant use by half and to cut them out altogether with new technologies freed up by the new tests. However, due to lobbying from the chemical industry these new regulations failed to be implemented in April 2015 when they were due, and look like being blocked for some time to come. Guess what? The government also discovered that flame retardants in furniture don't actually work most of the time anyway.

I never ever worried about this.

Why not? There's plenty of evidence to suggest you should be.

I didn't realise there were so many co-sleepers on MN, I like it :)

Not liking that there is apparently another pseudoscience argument against it out there though.

Not sure if you're referring to the dangers of flame retardants as 'pseudoscience' but if so, you're wrong. The government published a whole raft of evidence that flame retardants are a problem in its consultation document for the proposed changes to the furniture flammability laws. And, just one other example, the Health and Safety Executive published a 400 page report into the dangers of what at the time was the main flame retardant used in furniture with the result that it was placed on the restricted list under REACH (the EU chemical registration law).

Jenny If that's true then fair enough but surely it's an issue for all sleepers not just babies?

Yes, of course it is. Children are more vulnerable because they also tend to play on the floor, where house dust containing flame retardants rests, and often put their faces/mouths close to furniture coverings that contain FRs. Research by Defra on rats put under the effects of flame retardants was worrying. It discovered all kinds of unusual behaviour in young and adolescent rats, including an inability to concentrate. The same problems have also been found in children exposed to flame retardants - memory loss, lower IQs, etc.

There is a lot of evidence on flame retardants. A pretty good place to start is with the Chicago Tribune's website: media.apps.chicagotribune.com/flames/index.html. Their investigative team won the Pulitizer Prize for this campaign. The issues are virtually the same in the UK.

Because if you worry about every tiny thing which might be a risk you'd die curled up in a ball of anxiety.

The EU is pretty decent at banning stuff which is harmful eventually. Most stuff is going to kill you in the end. Hardly anything is going to make you drop dead immediately.

No one's suggesting you should worry about every tiny thing. This, however, is one big thing.

The EU may be pretty decent at banning stuff eventually but by then the damage is often done. I mentioned that it took HSE a 400 page report to get just one chemical restricted. The flame retardant industry had already produced a replacement which is near identical. Which is their tactic. 'Eventually' is becoming a shorter concept because these chemicals are multiplying rapidly and are accumulative. Scientists researching raptors in Alaska, for example, found not only flame retardant deposits in them but also DDT, a poison that was banned decades ago.

It may be true that flame retardants are not going to make you drop dead immediately but they can certainly make you drop dead long before you should.

But of course you don't have to worry if you don't want to. The rest of us can find out where to get furniture/mattresses that are free of flame retardants.

Oh, and for the record, I'm not worried about this. I'm angry about it.

Sure, I'm just saying, everyone has their "pet" issue. If it's not chemicals in mattresses, it's chemicals in baby bottles (some now banned of course), microbeads, cheap car seats, running the washing machine/dishwasher when you're out, genetically modified food and other artificial food ingredients, non-organic meat, non rinsed washing up liquid, microwaves, non stick pans, ingredients in sun cream, mobile phone radiation, sleeping after eating, passive smoking, mouthwash, and a whole host of other things I've forgotten, if I allow these things to take up brain space then they seriously drive me insane and put me in a state of doing absolutely nothing because I'm worried that every choice is wrong, especially as (when it comes to products) it often seems like the "safe" alternatives are expensive, difficult to find, and involve lots of research. It's also not always clear what is a genuine worry and what is people trying to make money off their specialised product. Often you just need to solve the immediate problem (place to sleep, food to eat, safe container for baby in car) and you don't have the time, money or resources to make it into a huge project to find out what is best.

It seems to me that these ingredients are present in baby cot mattresses too and I wouldn't have had the money to shell out on a fancy organic one so it would have been the same issue either way. And surely if they are in mattresses they are in everything - sofas and carpets and car seats and I definitely do not have the money to replace everything and I'd rather not feel anxious and worried about something I can't control so I need to just put it out of my mind.

You asked me why I wasn't worried about it that's all. I do agree these things are a concern and I'm glad that scientists and people are researching it, it's just that it's a lot for laypeople to worry about when you take every unclear health worry into account.

The toxic gas thing is in old cot mattresses which have had a baby sleep on them and be sick etc on them

It's meant to over time react with fire proof coatings

This is why you should have a new mattress in a cot for every child

It's not associated with adult bed mattresses

I'm not sure what you mean by 'the toxic gas thing' but where flame retardants are concerned they very much exude from mattresses, new ones especially. And they do not need to have sick on them in order to do so. I've never heard of baby sick activating fire-proof coatings. Flame retardant particles leak out of mattresses purely through the pressure of a body lying on them. Which applies to both child and adult mattresses since both have to pass the UK's furniture flammability laws.

To BertieBotts:

I understand what you’re saying. I bumped into this issue almost by accident and can do something about it because I have the knowledge and contacts to. But I completely accept that it is difficult to even try to address all the issues that may or do affect our health.

There is a wonderful woman called Arlene Blum, a chemist in California. For many years she fought the flame retardant industry almost alone. Eventually, others joined her until together they got the US furniture flammability laws changed in 2014. There’s an HBO movie about it called ‘Toxic Hot Seat’ (directed by Robert Redford’s son) and at one point in it Arlene talks about how weird it is that for years she was that mad woman who wouldn’t stop going on about flame retardants but now people actually want to talk to her about it.

Unfortunately, the fact that most of us feel unable to change things means big industry can go on making millions while putting our lives at risk. Consumer pressure contributed greatly to the US law change. And protestors outside Macy’s managed to get the store to make a commitment that it would stop selling furniture with FRs. So it can be done.

FRs aren’t quite in everything, although the producers do their best to ensure they are. EU law doesn’t require FRs, or even flammability measures, for most household objects. Having said that, I know plenty of carpet manufacturers, blind makers, etc, put FRs in their products because they’ve bought into the industry’s assertion that they save lives (and, no doubt, that they can prevent potential law suits).

What’s particularly bad in the UK at the moment is that the government produced the means to reduce FRs in furniture but is delaying things under pressure from the chemical industry.

I'm speaking about the cot death association with mattresses

Normal mattress here too.
I think when she was very very young, as in days old, I put a cellular blanket down where she slept as it was easier to change if she was sick.
I also slept further down the bed too, with my pillow longways instead of normal sideways. I sleep normally now she's 1 but my husband still sleeps further down the bed so she has the top half to herself.