Is Your Crib Bedding Set Harmful?
Over 6000 cases of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) are reported each year, and more than 900 of these are due to babies’ soft baby bedding. Thus, you must ask yourself if your baby bedding is safe.
For infants soft baby nursery bedding may cause suffocation when head sinks into soft mattress during baby placed in her belly. Despite being comfortable for babies, soft mattresses may be dangerous for little ones. Infants should be supervised at all times and be given the best care to avoid deadly accidents. For example, special care should be taken when placing an infant a crib with a soft mattress so that suffocation does not occur.
Parents can prevent suffocation by ensuring that their baby has a firm mattress to sleep on. You can assess the strength of a mattress with the simple test of pressing one hand down on the mattress and guaging the resistance to the force applied. A mattress with the strongest resistance is is best.
Bumper pads are often added to a crib to give it a designer look; but a baby can suffocate if he becomes stuck with his face pressed into one.
Parents should have care and precaution because infants are vulnerable and weak during this period. Parents need to make a choice between wanting cute and wanting what’s safest for the baby. If the parents should choose the latter, they should take out all the bumper pads from the crib and refrain from putting anything that might cause danger to their babies again.
According to some research, mattress contains some toxic gases which may be harmful to baby’s health. Chemical compounds such as phosphouous and arsenic are being added to mattresses. They are used as fire retardants but can be very dangerous. These chemicals can react with others and release poisonous gases; if an infant breathes too much of these, he can die while sleeping in his crib.
Scientists have since found, however, that a frequently occurring fungus in baby bedding may be one of the reactants which is an aid in releasing these toxic fumes. Parents are thus urged not to use old nursery and crib bedding which has been used before, as it may contain fungus after a long period of time. Because infants only sleep in cribs for a short period of time, parents may be tempted to reuse old bedding. However, to avoid the existence of such fungus, this should not be the case. Old reused bedding will look less pretty than a new baby nursery bedding.
In addition, there is some concern about synthetic fabric in baby bedding sets. While there is no solid proof that synthetic fabrics are harmful to a baby, you may want to stick to natural fibers. There are plenty of stylish cotton crib bedding sets available (one of my favorites is the Maya baby bedding by Trend Lab), so there is no need to sacrifice style for safety.
Taking into account all these different things, moms and dads should be able to decide if the baby’s bedding is safe. To avoid sleepless nights, parents should just choose safe beddings for their babies, it will not only relieve them of their worries but will also let the baby enjoy his/her slumber.
