During the night, we absorb chemicals from our mattress and bedding through our respiratory system and our skin. For the vast majority of people, who are sleeping on a conventional mattress, these include flame-retardants, phthalates, formaldehyde and adhesives, a mixture of suspected and proven carcinogens as well as components of smog.

“Conventional mattresses are designed by marketers — they’re thick, beautiful and perpetually on sale,” says Dean Halstead, local master mattress maker. “They are sealed units so they can’t be cleaned or refreshed and they’re coated in flame retardants to protect the very few people who may still smoke in bed.”

Some people might notice the effects of these chemicals and figure out what is causing their ailments. Most will continue to sleep in a slew of chemicals that is likely affecting their health in myriad ways.

Marilou Basa and her family suffer from chemical sensitivities. Basa refers to herself, her husband and their two young children as “canaries in the coal mine.” When her daughter, Taliah, was five years old, she suffered from severe food allergies as well as asthma and sleep apnea. Basa was spurred by her little girl’s worsening environmental sensitivities to investigate triggers.

She realized that Taliah was sleeping on a waterproof vinyl mattress cover each night and linked this to information she had come across tying volatile organic compounds to asthma. Alarmed that her five-year-old was spending each night breathing in the fumes from PVC, she began searching for an alternative.

“It wasn’t as easy as I hoped,” says Basa. In the end, she covered her daughter’s mattress in an organic cotton barrier cover (for dust mites) and an organic wool puddle pad for accidents. “I immediately noticed a remarkable difference in the quality of her sleep. She was more restful, didn’t cough at night, didn’t wake congested, didn’t sweat and overheat, and her sleep apnea was gone. I was shocked at the vast improvement.”

Her daughter now sleeps on a conventional mattress with the afore-mentioned cover and pad plus a wool duvet, kapok-filled pillow and organic cotton sheets, all on a bed frame made of solid wood (no medium-density fibre or particle board, which contain VOC-releasing glues). She and her husband sleep in a similar setting. “Although we were not able to completely change over our bedding needs all at once,” she says, “the changes we did make, dramatically improved the quality of our sleep, and thus our health.”

This is an important point — often making a change for a healthier or more eco-conscious lifestyle can be a very overwhelming prospect, but it need not happen all at once. Buying new sheets? Shop for organic cotton or bamboo.

Need a new mattress? Consider a rubber mattress or other natural option from a store like Riva’s - The Eco-Store.

Halstead firmly believes that everyone should know their farmer, their butcher, their baker, and their mattress maker. He recounts how the trade used to be regional with locally-produced products such as feathers, straw and horse hair used for stuffing, until it was taken over by large companies who began making mattresses nationally. He sees a future where the trade becomes regional once again, with materials like locally grown organic wool front and centre in local mattress production.

In the end, Basa was led to start her own online shop, Innocent Earth, dealing in natural options for babies and very young children including organic stuffed toys. “I knew I could not be the only one out there with seeking natural options,” she says.