What Rug Is Safe for a Baby?

You can buy organic wool rugs or rugs made from other kinds of natural fiber, they are just pretty pricey.

Polypropylene itself is not considered toxic. It is widely used for clothing, packaging materials (everything that is marked with a 5 in the recycle symbol), even surgical suture material. BUT rugs made out of PP are often treated with fire retardants and other chemicals (everything from dye to herbicides that protect the product during storage and transport) which can evaporate (hmm, that new carpet smell - a mix of several toxins and carcinogens) and leach out.

If you are concerned you should contact the manufacturer and ask if there are any toxicology results for their products or what they are doing to make their product more environmentally and health friendly. Many companies have these data and simply don't publish them in easily accessible places.

Good luck.

If you google 'safe carpeting' you'll find lots of information online. Here's one brief but useful link: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/art-and-community/yes-b...

We choose wool rugs due to the off gassing of the polypropelene type ones (olefin, nylon, etc.). And definitely get a non-slip pad for underneath.

Wool
Tatami (a Japanese mat. We have some).
Cotton

I bought a wool rug for our preschool off of an online site. They typically do not have an issue with off-gassing. It has worn very well and held up to a lot of kid traffic. Be sure to get a non-skid pad to put underneath so the rug doesn't slide around.

Good for you for being concerned about off-gassing and looking into this.

I just wanted to add -- whatever rug you choose, be certain it does not slip and the edges don't curl up and cause a tripping hazard for toddlers (and adults!). You can get many kinds of under-rug pads that help secure rugs to floors (not adhesives, pads that are non-slip). You might also want to check any off-gassing issues with the content of those pads. But you would not want to have a safe rug only to find it was a hazard because it slips around on the floor!

I would also select a wool rug. If properly cared for, they will also last the longest.