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Did you know that babies sleep for about seventy percent of their first year? If you're a parent, you're probably aware of this fact, and you're also probably aware - even obsessively aware - of everything in your baby's room. Or, are you? Have you ever considered how cotton, which makes up the material for your baby's sheets, clothing, and mattress, is grown and made into cloth?
Cotton sheets are common for both children and adults, and cotton makes up most baby bedding products, but how safe is ordinary cotton? Studies have been done to detect how long chemicals used to grow and treat cotton last in the fabric, and ordinary cotton, as opposed to chemical-free organic cotton fabric, involves several chemicals from the time it's grown in a field to when it's made into a fabric.
As going green in all aspects of living, from organic food to hybrid vehicles, has become more popular, what about going green at home with your baby? One option is organic baby bedding and, out of all the options for going green with your baby's room, using organic crib bedding, made from 100-percent organic cotton, is an organic option for making your baby's room safer. Cotton sheets that aren't organic are coated with formaldehyde to be wrinkle free and are processed with chemicals that are, essentially, part of the sheets. When your baby is sleeping for most of its first year, it's coming directly in contact with these chemicals. As the chemicals and concentrations of these chemicals aren't regulated, non-organic cotton in sheets, as well as clothing, can have high amounts of substances that may aggravate allergies and respiratory functions and lead to headaches and rashes in adults and children.
As organic cotton isn't grown with chemical fertilizers, sprayed with additional chemicals, or coated with formaldehyde, the organic crib bedding made with cotton eliminates all of these chemicals from a baby's environment. However, organic cotton isn't the only organic crib bedding available and the expanding market for organic products includes such options as bamboo or wool baby bedding, both of which eliminate chemicals from a baby's environment, as well.
Bamboo fibers, a material now found in many organic cloths, is another organic material for crib bedding. While pure bamboo is rarer for fabrics, organic bamboo is often a mixture of bamboo fibers and organic cotton - neither of which are treated with chemicals in the growth or fabric making processes. Bamboo, regardless of whether it's being used as crib bedding or clothing, can be mixed with rayon and, in this case, the fabric is no longer organic as rayon is not a natural fiber. Wool organic baby crib bedding, in addition, isn't coated with chemicals and, in fact, has natural fire retardant, antimicrobial, and antifungal properties.
When you're looking for organic products for your baby's room to go green, where do you look? Some baby retailers specialize in organic sheets and clothing but, aside from going directly to an organic products retailer, you can see if the baby bedding has Organic Trade Association (OTA) approval. OTA approval is listed on the product to indicate that, regardless of whether the organic baby bedding is made of cotton, bamboo, or wool, that no chemicals are involved anywhere in the process.
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