Mama Smith's Profile

Thanks so much to Apartment Therapy Family for including Wyatt’s little room and @winterviolet I appreciate the sweet remark. Very exciting!

@herselftheelf and @blowingraspberries, thanks also for bringing up such an important point regarding off-gassing. As a designer who spent many years specializing in the specification of healthy and sustainable building products it is a topic dear to my heart. While I completely understand and respect your decision not to use foam mats, I do want to say that we selected this particular mat, manufactured by Skip Hop, after much in-depth research and we are confident that this mat is safe for our home and our son. Formaldehyde is a complicated topic since trace amounts do occur naturally in virtually all materials, yet of course at high concentrations it’s extremely carcinogenic. This is why so many “green” building products which claim to be formaldehyde-free actually do contain trace amounts of formaldehyde and a more accurate term would be “no added urea-formaldehyde” (the dangerous formaldehyde used frequently as a binder in many products). These mats do contain virtually undetectable trace amounts of formaldehyde, as do so many materials. This amount is far below the European safety standards including in Belgium (where they banned foam mats based on other manufacturers that do contain added formaldehyde). After careful research we determined that these mats would actually have less off-gassing once we examined backings, underlayments, and coatings of many alternatives such as carpets that were marketed as “organic” and “all natural”.

Apologies for the long winded response! Again I completely respect your preference not to use these mats and understand the concern. I think it’s an ongoing struggle for all of us to get to the bottom of what products are safe for our families and even when something is marketed as “green” there are so often hidden issues. I know it’s a constant challenge for me.

Thanks again! -Lilly