Memory Foam Mattress Problems - Real or Perceived?

If you've considered buying a new mattress, you may have run across someone talking about memory foam mattress problems.

Are these problems real or are they just misinformation? How can you know about memory foam when there are so many conflicting statements out there?

I'd like to tackle the top 3 problems and help you understand what they are.

First and foremost, the most talked about perception is that memory foam sleeps hot.

I don't know where this thought originated, but I'm fairly sure it was from the days before memory foam.

Many RVs had foam mattresses in them and a popular way to get comfortable when camping was to put foam on your cot or on the ground under you.

Since normal polyurethane foam is a closed-cell material, the air has nowhere to escape at your body heats the foam.

These mattresses were extremely hot and caused you to sweat profusely.

Memory Foam Mattress Problems

Because memory foam is an open-celled material, the air can exchange between your body and the foam allowing you to sleep cooler.

Many manufacturers build air exchange layers into their mattresses to help cool even more, but I think this is not necessary except to help convince people that memory foam doesn't sleep hot.

Memory Foam Stinks

Again, this is a problem that may or may not be true.

Many of the mattresses made from memory foam have what's known as off-gassing problems.

Any memory foam could have a slight "new car smell" when you first receive it because its packaged in plastic.

Offensive odors are normally only found in foreign-made foam products that can use any number of toxic chemicals in their mattresses.

American-made foam is restricted by United States regulation from containing many of the harmful foreign-made chemicals, so they don't normally have any detectable odor.

Flammability Issues

Many people are concerned about the way memory foam mattresses are made to meet the new flammability standards imposed by the government.

These regulations are strict and require any mattresses sold in the U.S. to meet certain standards of flammability.

Many manufacturers of spring mattresses as well as foam mattresses may use boric acid or other harmful chemicals as their flame retardants.

Others use a variety of other types of retardants.

The different methods of flammability retarding can be used by manufacturers of any kind of mattresses so memory foam mattresses made with safer retardants are better than spring mattresses using boric acid or other harmful chemicals.

So those are the main 3 memory foam mattress problems that most people think are drawbacks to choosing memory foam but are really easily answered.