I stumbled upon The Mattress Underground forum and found a lot of valuable information on mattresses. I have 2 kids , age 11 & 4, and my #1 has been sleeping on Ikea Fonness since 2008, with a featherbed topper and an organic wool pad. After reading more in depth about mattresses, I’m concerned if the mattress might have offgassing all these time (although there was never an odor from new). I just want to have some advice if we discard the feather topper and add a latex topper with wool quilted ticking on top of the Fonness, will be good enough. Otherwise, we have looked into Ikea Morgongava. I am interested to know though if all the material used in Morgongava has previously been treated with chemicals.
Hi viva_dc,
If the polyfoam in your Fonness mattress was or is offgassing then the only way to completely stop any VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) from reaching the person sleeping on the mattress would be with an activated carbon blanket or a sealed polyethylene enclosure (see post #3 here). The only way to know whether any material is offgassing any harmful VOC’s or has any harmful substances in it that can leach out of the material and affect the person sleeping on the mattress would be with some kind of testing and certification such as CertiPur* or OekoTex standard 100 and I don’t know of any specific testing that Ikea makes available to its customers so this would really be an unknown. I also don’t know the source of the polyfoam in Ikea mattresses but I have no specific reason to believe that the polyfoam in their mattresses would be any more or less harmful than any other type of polyfoam.
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In most cases VOC’s are more concentrated near the surface of a material so for example children playing on a rug that has a polyurethane underlay or that lie down on a sofa or other foam furniture that contains polyfoam may be exposed to higher concentrations of any harmful VOC’s (if there are any) than if they were further away. Polyfoam is also made from petrochemicals that will break down into dust particles over time and become part of the dust in the air and breathing in these particles is a concern for some people that are more sensitive to chemicals or that have higher levels of concern with any potentially harmful substances in their home and the dust would also be more concentrated closer to the sleeping surface (or a rug or sofa or other foam furniture) and could have a bigger effect on whether it was breathed in by your kids.
Because exposure is more concentrated when you are closer to any material that is offgassing or breaking down into dust particles, adding a topper or mattress pad (that didn’t offgas itself) would have “some effect” on exposure to any harmful VOC’s or harmful substances that may exist in the material but it would only be partial and wouldn’t eliminate it completely.
The Morgongava uses latex made by Mountaintop Foam along with cotton and wool. The Mountaintop latex has been tested and certified by Oeko-Tex so you have some “scientific” assurance that there aren’t any harmful substances or VOC’s that would affect your kids.
Phoenix
Thanks so much.