I've been reading about mattress protection as we expand our family bed, and what I'm reading about mattress chemical treatment and outgassing is really really depressing.
I found this article:
http://www.thegreenguide.com/reports/product.mhtml?id=1 to be a really good summary of the concerns w/ conventional mattresses. It also has ideas for less toxic alternatives, and some options for organic cotton/wool/natural latex mattresses (which are quite expensive, unfortunately). There's also another article at the same site that discusses baby bedding:
http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/100/crib.
Since we can't afford to replace any of our mattresses (in fact, they were all purchased by grandparents), we're planning on wrapping them in polyethylene sheeting to at least reduce the outgassing. This site had good instructions on wrapping a mattress:
http://www.cure-guide.com/Natural_He...ng___sids.html. It'll also provide moisture protection, which was my main concern when I started reading all this scary stuff! And I can buy enough sheeting to wrap all our mattresses for about $50, which is actually cheaper than many the "waterproof" mattress covers for our king bed alone.
