Can SIDS Be Prevented?

If Dr. Jim Sprott’s research is correct and toxic nerve gases in crib mattresses do cause SIDS, what can parents do?

In New Zealand, Sprott began a campaign to wrap crib mattresses in high-grade polyethylene that’s impermeable to gas. Since New Zealand parents began to wrap their children’s crib mattresses in 1995, SIDS incidents have dropped by sixty-eight percent.In fact, more than 180,000 babies have slept on wrapped mattresses, but not a single child sleeping on a wrapped mattress has died. Simply put, that’s a one-hundred percent success rate.¹

Fortunately, I discovered Sprott’s theory when I was pregnant with my first child and I ordered Sprott’s BabeSafe mattress cover. Our new flame retardant crib mattress easily fit inside the thick BPA- and phthalate-free plastic cover. Once the mattress was inside, I put a cotton bath towel over the wrapped mattress and a standard crib sheet over everything.When Big Brother started sleeping in his crib, I didn’t worry about SIDS at all. That’s huge, since I tend to be a worrier – especially when it comes to the health and safety of my children. When he learned how to roll over at three months and began to sleep on his belly, I never feared what I might find when I walked into his nursery. Not having a concern about SIDS was worth every penny spent.

Once I was pregnant a second time, we bought another wrap for Little Sister’s new mattress. Again, I didn’t worry about SIDS possibilities.

Sprott’s theory is unproven in the American scientific community. However, I trust the results in New Zealand. And I’ve especially been grateful for the mattress covers so my children haven’t been exposed to the PBDEs in their mattresses.

How to find BabeSafe mattress covers
BabeSafe mattress covers aren’t sold in retail stores across the United States. In fact, when I bought my first mattress cover three years ago, I ordered it from New Zealand. They’re available online, though. And now you can order BabeSafe mattress covers in the United States. Accidentally Green has partnered with Eve’s Best, a business with a similar perspective as Accidentally Green, where you can order mattress covers for your own children. Visit Eve’s Best and look at the menu on the left side. Under the Healthy Baby section, click on BabeSafe Mattress Covers.

As an aside, Evie, the owner of Eve’s Best and The Diaper Lady, considers herself a former mainstream parent “who fell into cloth diapering on accident. Once that happened, the door to a whole new world was opened! Decisions that we once let doctors make for us became very different, from vaccinating, to making our own baby food, and even SIDS prevention measures we learned about on the Internet. What we’ve learned is that natural parenting is about doing what’s best for our baby, rather than doing what everyone else is doing.”

What about adults?
Mattresses for adults, particularly memory foam mattresses, are covered in PBDEs, too. To avoid breathing in hazardous fumes all night long, similar mattress wraps made with food grade polyethylene are exclusively available at No Chem Bed Solutions. Wrapping all mattresses sounds like a good idea. After all – if PBDEs in mattresses are dangerous enough to kill babies, breathing in the toxic gases all night long can’t be beneficial to older children or adults.

Disclosure: Actions you take from the hyperlinks within this blog post may yield commissions for www.accidentallygreen.com.

Source
How to wrap a baby’s mattress for cot death. Dr. Jim Sprott.

Photo credit
Jomphong/FreeDigitalPhotos.net