Non-toxic play mats for babies

[sundaymorningstaple]

But I like ladies! And not so lady-like even more!

[tequi]

Sorry, no idea why I assumed everyone here was female!

Anyway... so I received the mat today. And I'm extremely disappointed. Although it is from the same manufacturer (Lucky Baby), the packaging is different to the one shown on their website and it doesn't say "odorless, non-toxic"! So I called them right away and will be returning it. I gave them my reason and they were very understanding (didn't try to convince me that it's actually non-toxic although it doesn't say so on the packaging).

Thanks to your reactions to my post I've become more aware of just how toxic these mats can be. Read this article today and it shows that even the bigger brands don't always come clean about what their mats are made of. I hope one day everything baby- and child-related will be safe and non-toxic!

[tequi]

Oh... also no mention of where it was made. There's a logo with a Merlion and "Singapore" on it, but it doesn't actually say that it was made in Singapore.

[x9200]

Thanks to your reactions to my post I've become more aware of just how toxic these mats can be. Read this article today and it shows that even the bigger brands don't always come clean about what their mats are made of.

I made the effort to read this. Let me paraphrase the author: personally I believe that the person who wrote this and some of the linked article is (at best) a hysterical, panicing mom with no basic, rudimentary knowledge on what she is talking about. I also personally believe that this wannabe journalist have yet to learn some basic ethical standards: I.e. how convenient to rely on some experts opinions and not mention the expert name. These are her believes and nothing more - at least she openly admits it. Additionally, her believes are also contradictive with the test results (probably the only worth reading piece of info) she published at the bottom. If I were a legitimate manufacturer I would be very hesitant to send any results to her. Likelihood of the results being misinterpreted by the author seems very high.
Of course you may also believe what you want to believe.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Sounds like the same kind of people who believe in homeopathy.....

[x9200]

With homeopathy you can at least hope for some placebo effect

Just to make it clear: it is undesirable to have formamide in any of the products but with the concentration we are talking about it is highly unlikely it will do any harm. The only concern for the formamide itself is its possible teratogenic effect but then again with the concentration and typical settings (ventilated room) the risk even for the product containing it is close to zero. Immediate toxicity of formamide is low. An adult would probably need to take a full glass of it (ca 200g) to have a good chance to die (ORL-RAT LD50 6000 mg / kg; IHL-RAT LC50 3900 mg / kg / 6h). For babies these Nos will be lower but likely within the same order of magnitude.

We have a baby, few months old playing on the mats from toysRus and soon we will move him to a different room. Probably the new mats will be bought again from the same source and what I am intending to do, is just to leave the mats spread in a well ventilated area (could be a balcony for example) for a week before moving them to the room. This is just in case and probably not even necessary. If the mats are not wrapped in a plastic package I would probably skip even this step. Formamide is a liquid, it evaporates. So longer you keep the mats less formamide is inside (if it was any).

Why were the authorities alerted in such cases like these in France? Because giving some specific circumstances it can be hazardous. I.e. somebody buys the mats with elevated levels of formamide and immediately puts it to a small, poorly ventilated space all over the floor and partly onto the walls.

A different example but similar area. Only few decades ago some lead based pigments were extremely popular for white permanent paints (indoor/outdoor). Many generations passed using these paints and apparently nothing catastrophic happened. But then again, there were very specific cases where use of such paint ended up fatal. One example was shown few months ago on the CI channel. A couple with a baby girl rented an old house in a rather poor aesthetic condition. The girl was usually playing outside, on some kind of veranda that was pained in white and the paint was peeling/chipping off. The girl, as many toddlers do took these pieces of paint and put them to her mouth playing with them. This continued for a number of months (IIRC) and slowly she started to get sick. Because nobody expected this kind of poisoning it took a long time to diagnose it and it was already too late.
So simply to get into any troubles with some "hidden" toxic materials it typically takes more than one factor. If the parents were a bit more responsible an not let her play alone for hours and put to her mouths whatever she wanted the tragedy was avoidable even with the lead based paints all around the place.

[tequi]

Thanks for the valuable input x9200! It's very much appreciated. It's hard to navigate all these reports online when words like formamide mean absolutely nothing to me. Glad to know I don't have to panic. I'll just get a mat from a reputable producer and make sure to air it out properly.
Thank you!

[ger_mum]

Wow, i haven't logged into this thread for sometime and didn't realise there were so many replies...

Thanks everyone, the info given on this thread was really useful to me. I didn't get round to buying the mat till recently.

In the end I took Meiy's advice and bought a korean playmat from Dwinguler, apparently the origin of the mat is from LG Korea, so a reputable international co. I think.

Meiy, thanks for the link for the company. there's a singapore link too www.dwinguler.com.sg and some places like Mums N Babes are carrying the mats, that's where I got mine from.

x9200, I made sure I aired and wiped it with mild soap before I used it
and will not use dettol on it...