If you own a mattress, you need a mattress pad to protect it. A mattress pad or protector is one of the most valuable tools — in fact, perhaps it’s the most valuable tool — you can use to protect your mattress from dust mites, dead skin flakes and other bodily debris, fluids, pet dander, bacteria, and mould. When you use one, you could extend the life of your mattress by years.
But when it comes to choosing the right mattress pads for your family, conventional materials just won’t do. Conventional mattress pads could expose your family to toxic chemicals, and they’re not sustainably produced, either. Instead, you should choose organic mattress pads for your family. Here’s why.
Protect Your Family from Dangerous Chemicals and Pesticides
Did you know that cotton is one of the most pesticide-heavy crops produced in the world? To grow just about enough cotton to make one t-shirt requires 17 teaspoons of pesticides, defoliants, herbicides, and insecticides. These toxic chemicals remain in the fabric even after it’s processed into a final product. When you buy a mattress pad, or any bedding, made with conventionally produced cotton, you’re sleeping on a bed drenched with toxic chemicals.
Many of the synthetic chemicals used in mattress pads and mattresses are also dangerous. Synthetic foam, latex, and down can off-gas volatile organic compounds (VoCs) into your home. These toxic chemicals have been linked to a range of health complaints, ranging from mild allergy and asthma symptoms and headaches to memory impairment, cancer, major organ damage, and central nervous system damage.
To protect your family, you need to minimize the toxic chemicals present in your home. One way you can do this is by buying an organic mattress pad for each of your beds (If you can afford it, you should also replace your conventionally produced mattresses with organic mattresses made with all-natural, sustainably produced materials). Organic mattress pads are made with organic wool, cotton, and latex, so they don’t contain synthetic materials that could off-gas hazardous chemicals, or traditionally produced cotton soaked in dangerous pesticides and herbicides.
Protect the Environment
It’s not just your family that suffers when you choose a conventionally produced mattress pad. Synthetic materials and conventionally grown materials aren’t sustainably produced. An organic mattress pad is made without many of the same toxic chemicals and pesticides used to grow conventional cotton and produce synthetic rubber, foam, and fabrics. So your choice of an organic mattress pad is one that will benefit the whole world, not just your household.
Protect Your Mattress
The most important reason to use an organic mattress pad is to protect your mattress without relying on synthetic fabrics and risking exposure to VoCs or other toxins. The organic materials used to make these mattress pads are naturally water resistant, antibacterial, and antifungal. An organic mattress pad made with wool is naturally water-resistant and flame retardant, so there’s less need to rely on the potentially toxic flame retardant chemicals used in mattresses, mattress pads, children’s toys, furniture, and other home goods. You can give your family fire-safe bedding that won’t run the risk of making them sick.
And your mattress needs a mattress pad to protect it from dead skin flakes, dust mites, bacteria and more. Even though you can’t see them, dead skin cells flake off of your body all the time. At night, those dead cells end up in your sheets — and if you don’t have a mattress pad, they’ll make their way through the sheets and into your mattress. There, they’ll attract dust mites, which feed on them and excrete human allergens in their feces. Moisture from your body fluids, along with the darkness and warmth of the mattress environment, will foster the growth of bacteria. Mold or mildew can also start to grow, especially in humid climates.
Over the years, a lot of filth can build up in your mattress this way — and there’s no way to get it out. The only thing you can do is use a mattress pad to keep all of that stuff from collecting in your mattress in the first place. But with a mattress pad, your mattress can stay as clean as the day you bought it until it completely breaks down.
You need a mattress pad, and organic is the right choice. It can protect your mattress from dust mites and filth, and your family from toxic chemicals. Get the most out of your mattress with an organic mattress pad.
