As soon as I found out the sex of Baby Carpenter, I started looking at crib bedding. I was so excited to pick out colors and a theme. It turned out to be a lot harder than I thought! Everything was either too girly or too modern. I actually learned that I like boy bedding a lot better. I love greens and browns, leaves and trees. As much as was into this style, I decided that I really did want a more ‘girly’ nursery. Once I finally settled on my bedding, I started looking into the actual pieces of furniture that I wanted in the room.
Candice and I both listen to a podcast called Pregtastic, and one of the episodes featured ways to be a “green” mom. The woman being interviewed warned about crib material and how you should choose solid wood instead of particleboard or pressed wood. She warned that these kinds of wood contain formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is volatile organic compound (VOC), meaning that it becomes a gas at normal room temperatures. It is also a known carcinogen - a cancer causing substance. It's not only carcinogenic to humans, but to many animals and birds as well. We had known that formaldehyde was in a lot of things, such as nail polish, but not in furniture!
Formaldehyde also appears to have a large impact on children’s respiratory health. Studies have shown that chronic exposure to formaldehyde at levels greater than 16 ppb in indoor air is linked with an increased likelihood of respiratory symptoms (such as coughing) and/or allergic sensitization in children. A brand new crib and changing table contain indoor formaldehyde levels of about 30 ppb on average throughout the whole house!
This prompted a whole other strain of thought in which you could worry about all the other furniture in your house. The woman on the podcast later discussed how most of the toxic levels of formaldehyde are released within the first two years, so buying used cribs and other furniture would be a better option as well.
It actually wasn’t too difficult to find furniture made from solid wood and safe paints and/or finishes. They are just VERY expensive. No offense to anyone who has, but we refused to pay $800+ for a crib! Since the random Google results weren’t compatible with our budget, we started searching traditional baby stores. Even seemingly “quality” places such as Pottery Barn Kids use medium-density fiberboard (MDF) in their cribs. MDF is an engineered wood product formed by breaking down hardwood or softwood residuals into wood fibers. Formaldehyde resins are commonly used to bind MDF together and testing has consistently revealed that MDF products emit urea formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds that pose health risks at sufficient concentrations, for at least several months after manufacture. The urea formaldehyde is always being slowly released from the surface of MDF.
In addition to the toxic VOCs that are off gassed from these types of products, the life cycle analysis indicates that MDF and other plastic composite products use twice as much energy and have 100% more global warming potential than their unaltered wood counterparts (Dovetail Partners Inc., 2010). Life cycle analysis takes into account all the resource, manufacturing and transportation needs, product usage and end-of-life disposal. So the best thing would be to buy/borrow a used crib – but we have to admit – we’re a little picky when it comes to these things… the next best thing with the lowest environmental impact would be a crib built with sustainably grown wood that is stained with a non-toxic finish.
So we both arrived at the same solution – a DaVinci crib. However, the parent company to DaVinci furniture, Million Dollar Baby (http://www.milliondollarbaby.com/faq#1), doesn’t say much with respect to the sustainability of wood used. We find it a little suspicious that considering the “green marketing” boom, they’re not making a bigger effort to promote this side of their business. Many retailers that sell DaVinci cribs market them as eco-friendly options, but this is the extent of eco-information on their website:
Q. What kind of wood are your cribs made out of?
Most of our cribs are made of Pine wood from sustainable forests in New Zealand. The New Zealand Radiata Pine, used in our furniture, is eco-friendly. We also use Rubber wood from Malaysia and Sepetir wood from harvested forests in other Asian countries. We NO longer use protected wood species like Ramin wood from Indonesia in any of our furniture.
Q. My baby has been teething on the crib and the paint is coming off, is your crib safe and what can I do?”
We understand that when babies are teething they will chew on anything they can. If your baby is chewing on one of our cribs, rest assured that we use non-toxic water based paint that is safe for your baby. All of our cribs meet JPMA and CPSC safety standards. If you would like to avoid your child chewing on their crib, several companies manufacture crib rail protectors for you to purchase.
Besides this info (which we assumed to be legitimate) there’s not much supporting evidence online. We emailed the company with some additional questions, like, “What are the ingredients in your non-toxic paint?” We hadn’t received a response at the time we wrote this. Apparently the cribs are made in China, which makes us wonder about the non-toxic paint finish. Nothing exported from China seems to be non-toxic these days. Is it unrealistic to buy a sustainably forested, non-toxic finished crib for less than $300? Maybe so.
However, to spend $1,000+ on a crib was out of our budget if we wanted other non-toxic, eco-friendly products as well. It would be silly to have a super high-end crib and then put a regular mattress in the crib. Many mattresses say they are Organic, but that means only the outside cover and the inside still contains vinyl/PVC and polyurethane foam. These plastic materials also off-gas toxic chemicals like Dioxin and phthalates – neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors that are linked to learning disabilities, breast cancer and reproductive issues (CHEJ, 2009).
Considering how much time babies spend sleeping in their cribs, we felt the mattress was also a very important choice. So we chose the Naturepedic crib mattress and changing pad with ABC Organic Cotton Velour covers/sheets. Naturepedic mattresses have a polyethylene cover and are filled with Organic Cotton. Although still a plastic, polyethylene is considered non-toxic and the mattresses are GREENGUARD certified for Indoor Air Quality and Children & Schools, meaning these mattresses off gas 1/100th of the industry standard values for VOCs, phthalates and other toxic chemicals.
Candice and I both listen to a podcast called Pregtastic, and one of the episodes featured ways to be a “green” mom. The woman being interviewed warned about crib material and how you should choose solid wood instead of particleboard or pressed wood. She warned that these kinds of wood contain formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is volatile organic compound (VOC), meaning that it becomes a gas at normal room temperatures. It is also a known carcinogen - a cancer causing substance. It's not only carcinogenic to humans, but to many animals and birds as well. We had known that formaldehyde was in a lot of things, such as nail polish, but not in furniture!
Formaldehyde also appears to have a large impact on children’s respiratory health. Studies have shown that chronic exposure to formaldehyde at levels greater than 16 ppb in indoor air is linked with an increased likelihood of respiratory symptoms (such as coughing) and/or allergic sensitization in children. A brand new crib and changing table contain indoor formaldehyde levels of about 30 ppb on average throughout the whole house!
This prompted a whole other strain of thought in which you could worry about all the other furniture in your house. The woman on the podcast later discussed how most of the toxic levels of formaldehyde are released within the first two years, so buying used cribs and other furniture would be a better option as well.
It actually wasn’t too difficult to find furniture made from solid wood and safe paints and/or finishes. They are just VERY expensive. No offense to anyone who has, but we refused to pay $800+ for a crib! Since the random Google results weren’t compatible with our budget, we started searching traditional baby stores. Even seemingly “quality” places such as Pottery Barn Kids use medium-density fiberboard (MDF) in their cribs. MDF is an engineered wood product formed by breaking down hardwood or softwood residuals into wood fibers. Formaldehyde resins are commonly used to bind MDF together and testing has consistently revealed that MDF products emit urea formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds that pose health risks at sufficient concentrations, for at least several months after manufacture. The urea formaldehyde is always being slowly released from the surface of MDF.
In addition to the toxic VOCs that are off gassed from these types of products, the life cycle analysis indicates that MDF and other plastic composite products use twice as much energy and have 100% more global warming potential than their unaltered wood counterparts (Dovetail Partners Inc., 2010). Life cycle analysis takes into account all the resource, manufacturing and transportation needs, product usage and end-of-life disposal. So the best thing would be to buy/borrow a used crib – but we have to admit – we’re a little picky when it comes to these things… the next best thing with the lowest environmental impact would be a crib built with sustainably grown wood that is stained with a non-toxic finish.
So we both arrived at the same solution – a DaVinci crib. However, the parent company to DaVinci furniture, Million Dollar Baby (http://www.milliondollarbaby.com/faq#1), doesn’t say much with respect to the sustainability of wood used. We find it a little suspicious that considering the “green marketing” boom, they’re not making a bigger effort to promote this side of their business. Many retailers that sell DaVinci cribs market them as eco-friendly options, but this is the extent of eco-information on their website:
Q. What kind of wood are your cribs made out of?
Most of our cribs are made of Pine wood from sustainable forests in New Zealand. The New Zealand Radiata Pine, used in our furniture, is eco-friendly. We also use Rubber wood from Malaysia and Sepetir wood from harvested forests in other Asian countries. We NO longer use protected wood species like Ramin wood from Indonesia in any of our furniture.
Q. My baby has been teething on the crib and the paint is coming off, is your crib safe and what can I do?”
We understand that when babies are teething they will chew on anything they can. If your baby is chewing on one of our cribs, rest assured that we use non-toxic water based paint that is safe for your baby. All of our cribs meet JPMA and CPSC safety standards. If you would like to avoid your child chewing on their crib, several companies manufacture crib rail protectors for you to purchase.
Besides this info (which we assumed to be legitimate) there’s not much supporting evidence online. We emailed the company with some additional questions, like, “What are the ingredients in your non-toxic paint?” We hadn’t received a response at the time we wrote this. Apparently the cribs are made in China, which makes us wonder about the non-toxic paint finish. Nothing exported from China seems to be non-toxic these days. Is it unrealistic to buy a sustainably forested, non-toxic finished crib for less than $300? Maybe so.
However, to spend $1,000+ on a crib was out of our budget if we wanted other non-toxic, eco-friendly products as well. It would be silly to have a super high-end crib and then put a regular mattress in the crib. Many mattresses say they are Organic, but that means only the outside cover and the inside still contains vinyl/PVC and polyurethane foam. These plastic materials also off-gas toxic chemicals like Dioxin and phthalates – neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors that are linked to learning disabilities, breast cancer and reproductive issues (CHEJ, 2009).
Considering how much time babies spend sleeping in their cribs, we felt the mattress was also a very important choice. So we chose the Naturepedic crib mattress and changing pad with ABC Organic Cotton Velour covers/sheets. Naturepedic mattresses have a polyethylene cover and are filled with Organic Cotton. Although still a plastic, polyethylene is considered non-toxic and the mattresses are GREENGUARD certified for Indoor Air Quality and Children & Schools, meaning these mattresses off gas 1/100th of the industry standard values for VOCs, phthalates and other toxic chemicals.
Zoey helping daddy put the baby's crib together
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