Avoiding Flame Retardants: Other Household Items

Besides children’s PJs and mattresses, flame retardants are in an inordinate number of baby products. Some good news, however, is that in 2010, the law that prompted flame retardants showing up in almost everything was changed to exempt strollers, nursing pillows, and baby carriers from having to pass flammability standards. Then, the law was changed again in 2013 to exempt bassinets, booster seats, changing pads, floor play mats, highchairs, highchair pads, infant bouncers, infant seats, infant swings, infant walkers, nursing pads, playpen side pads, playards, portable hook-on chairs. I’m still cautious about any product I buy, however, because exempt does not mean that the items don’t have flame retardants. In addition, there are some items that are not exempted and may still contain flame retardants. Five things I ran into are below:

Car Seats: Car seats have to comply with the federal motor vehicle flammability standard so they will all have flame retardants (Believe me. I searched for days). You also aren’t likely to skirt around the issue by not buying a car seat because you can’t leave the hospital without one properly installed. I was disheartened, but in the end I tried my best to pick one that had the safest chemicals. By far, the leader (and, not surprisingly, most expensive) is Orbit Baby. I bought the G3 Infant Car Seat and Car Seat Base. Although it was $440, I feel like it was worth it because the company is the most blatant about using the least toxic and safest materials possible, including the flame retardants they use. They’re also lauded the world over on how non-toxic their products are. Not to mention, it’s what North West travels the world in. 

Portable Cribs/Playpens: The change in the law exempts only playpen side pads. This means the bottoms are not exempt and will likely contain flame retardants because kids often sleep in them. Given that the flame retardants are typically in the mattresses of portable cribs and playpens, you could just replace the mattress of anything with something that is free of flame retardants. That’s what I did because I’ve got a second-hand Phil&Teds Traveller, which the company stated has an organic phosphate flame retardant in the mattress. Don’t be fooled by the word organic. It’s organic in the sense that organic chemistry is organic. The flame retardant in their mattress still bioaccumulates and is considered a persistent organic pollutant. As such, my research led me to simply remove the mattress and replace it with leftover natural latex foam from The Foam Factory from when I reupholstered my glider because reupholstering the glider was the only flame retardant free option I could afford (see below).

Had I purchased a new portable crib, I would have gotten the Lotus Everywhere Travel Crib because it’s free of flame retardants. I didn’t and wouldn’t get a playpen because the travel crib can also serve as a playpen (which is what lots of people use the playpens for) and portable cribs are waaaay lighter and easier to transport than playpens, which is really the whole point of having a portable playpen. In addition, I couldn’t find a good flame retardant free playpen option.

Rocking chairs: These items aren’t exempt from the flammability standards because they are furniture. Some good news on this front: The law was changed so that furniture foam no longer has to be flame resistant. Instead, now only the fabric must pass only a smolder test. Given that most fabric inherently passes this test, by January 2015, you should see a lot more flame retardant free options (though I’ll always double check with the company to be sure). In the meantime, however, good luck because it’s basically impossible. I searched and searched and the only option I could really find hovered around $1000.

What I ended up doing was finding the cheapest glider I could that was made of wood and had padding and upholstery that I could replace using materials I knew were free of flame retardants. As I mentioned above, I used a natural latex foam mattress topper that I got from The Foam Factory, the same company that made my mattress. My husband cut out a piece of plywood onto which we placed 4 inches of latex foam, then covered using a pretty cotton fabric. We did the same thing to the stool, expect no plywood. Then, I used the back cushion that it came with as a pattern to make a new one with my fabric, which I stuffed with new batting. Lastly, I made new armrests.

My glider, free of flame retardants after a little DIY. #iusedafilterbecauseitsfilthy

Bumbo chair: I thought for sure there would be flame retardants in the polyurethane Bumbo chair. Weirdly enough, a well-respected peer-reviewed study did not find any of the harmful flame retardants that they tested for in the Bumbo chair. Given the study and the fact that the coating is likely to keep any possible flame retardant dust to a minimum if there were any, I felt comfortable enough with the chair to buy one for Frankie.

Carpet Padding: Foam carpet padding almost certainly contains flame retardants. The best way to reduce exposure to flame retardants from carpet padding is to remove the foam and replace it with natural wool, natural rubber, fiber or felt. Good luck with this too. You could also do what I did and just get rid of carpet and replace it with hardwood or tile. Now that I’ve had hardwood floors and tile and absolutely no carpet for 5 years, I can’t imagine living any other way. You wouldn’t believe the filth that collects on my floors between my St. Bernard’s hair and drool and my baby’s spit up. Carpet would have been disgusting. Plus, given that I haven’t been able to remove all of the things in my house that have flame retardants (foam insulation, foam couches and chairs), I prefer to be able to get the floors as squeaky clean as possible to remove the flame retardant dust that is surely falling onto them.

I’m concluding my posts on flame retardants now, but I want to leave you with two things. First, I want to remind you that the cheapest, quickest, and easiest way to reduce flame retardants in your and baby’s system is to wash hands with soap frequently (hand sanitizer doesn’t count!) and keep dust to a minimum with frequent HEPA vacuuming and wet mopping. Second, for more science-y information about flame retardants, go to the Green Science Policy Institute’s webpage. They’re a group of people with PhDs in this area and they write about the topic in a way that the general public can understand.