Is your baby sleeping on a safe baby nursery bedding?
25th October 2009 by Babies No CommentsReports have shown that there are more than 6000 babies die of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) each year and out of these cases, more than 900 cases are due to babies sleeping on soft baby nursery bedding. Hence the question, is your baby bedding safe for your child to sleep in?
Soft baby nursery bedding can cause an infant to suffocate when the baby is being placed on her belly and her head sinks into the soft mattress. Soft mattresses may be nice for babies to sleep in, however they might be dangerous too.As infants are too feeble, when their heads are being placed on the soft mattress, they might not have the ability to roll over to recover from the dangerous position. Fatal accidents might happen if no one is around to take care of the baby.
To avoid such accidents, parents can select a baby nursery bedding with a firm mattress that does not get depressed easily when some weight is being applied on it. They can simply experiment it by pressing one hand onto the bedding to determine it’s strength in withstanding the force applied. The harder it is to press down on the mattress, the better it is.
Bumper pads, that are added in the crib, can also cause suffocation. Bumper pads make the baby nursery bedding look cute and pretty, however, suffocation can happen when infants have their face pressed against the soft and fluffy bumper pads and are unable to free themselves.
Babies are naturally feeble and very prone to accidents during this period, and parents should take extra care and precaution. Few parents recommend to purchase bumper pads that are more compact and firm while others just remove all of them from the crib. The latter being the best method because, though rare, there are also cases of strangulation by the strings of the bumper pads and suffocation when babies are pressed between the bumper pads and another object.
Researchers also observed that there are toxic gases in beddings which can harm the baby’s health . Scientists found that there are chemical compounds that consists of phosphorous and arsenic which are commonly used as fire retardants, are being added to mattresses which can be very dangerous. Once these chemical compounds interact with certain reactants, they release poisonous gases which may be fatal if a baby breathes in a large amount of it when sleeping in the baby nursery bedding.
Scientists later found that a fungus that commonly germinates in baby bedding might be one of the reactants which can help to release the poisonous gases. Therefore, they urge parents not to reuse old baby nursery bedding which may contain such fungus after being used for a long period of time. Even though babies sleep in cribs for only a short period of time, parents should buy new bedding instead of reusing to avoid the existence of such fungus. Furthermore, a new baby nursery bedding will look prettier than an old reused one.
Looking at all these factors, parents should be able to evaluate if they have a safe baby nursery bedding. If not, go get a new one and select one safe bedding so that not only will your baby be able to sleep safe and sound, but you will also be able to rest at ease throughout the night.
