I just found your blog a couple of days ago and I’ve loved reading it so far. Congrats on your new little one, parenthood is such a wonderful journey. I’m especially loving your cloth diapering posts, how great that you were able to do it so cheaply!

I just wanted to share with you some info I have found on SIDS. There has been some speculation for a number of years that SIDS is caused by mattress offgassing – all of those chemicals they put in our mattresses to keep them flame retardant, etc. (The reason there has been such a dramatic decrease in SIDS since babies have started sleeping on their backs is because they aren’t directly breathing in the gasses released by their mattress when they’re on their backs). Anyway, I couldn’t find the original article I read, but this one gives good information as well:

http://www.johnleemd.com/store/art_sids.html

Also, the older a mattress is, the faster it offgasses, which is why later-born babies (or babies who are sleeping in hand-me-down mattresses) are at increased risk for SIDS.

I’ve been reading up on this quite a bit lately, and I’m thinking of purchasing a mattress wrap for all of our mattressess to prevent this offgassing. Even though my kids are a little older now, God knows what kind of effects those gasses will have on their development.

Anyway, not to frighten you or anything – but I know from experience that knowledge is power. Had I known then what I known now, I would have bought organic mattresses for our children.

Alissa

This was a real bummer for me when I found out about it…