Is There Polyurethane Foam At Sprout?

Though we often speak about avoiding polyurethane foam, a customer recently pointed out that some of our travel cribs and stroller bassinets do contain PU. Here is how we explain this discrepancy:

At Sprout, we try to balance between only carrying the best materials and having a solution for all the needs a parent has. Polyurethane foam is one place where we sometimes struggle with which choice to make. PU foam is made from petroleum and can offgas VOCs. The worst part though about traditional foam mattresses (that is most of the mattresses and upholstered furniture in the world) is that the foam is so flammable that it has to be sprayed with terrible flame retardant chemicals in order to make it pass flammability laws. So any PU foam on a typical crib mattress or twin mattress is probably sprayed with these chemicals. The number one priority should be avoiding these. Thus we never sell PU mattresses meant for a crib that a baby will sleep in full time.

The mattress from the travel cribs and some stroller bassinets that are made of PU foam are not sprayed with flame retardants. We have been guaranteed that. The reason they can get around this requirement is that they are very thin mattresses, so they don’t need to be sprayed in order to meet these standards as there is not very much foam. We still don’t think a baby should sleep on these mattresses for much time, but there is no travel crib or stroller bassinet that we have found that has an alternative. So we figure that if it’s something the child is only sleeping on in transit or on a trip, that is okay as long as it has no flame retardants. Some travel cribs do have flame retardants on the mattresses, so the ones we carry are still a safer alternative to others on the market. Also, we do try to find oeko tex certified fabrics when possible, because then we know it doesn’t have harmful chemicals added. We hope that helps. Please feel free to reach out to one of our stores with any follow up questions.