The Various Types of Foam Used in Mattress Production

When asked to picture a mattress, most of people will immediately think of a mattress made in the traditional way, with rows of springs covered with layers of softer fillings. There are actually various other ways for a mattress to be made. There is even more than one way of springing a mattress, with pocket springs proving to be more popular than the traditional open coil mattresses. The main change in mattress manufacture has been the various foams that are used in mattresses nowadays. There are three main types of foam and you can find out a little bit more about them here.

Memory Foam

Memory foam is perhaps the best known of the foams, with mattress manufacturers investing large amounts of money in the marketing of it. This foam was first developed by NASA to help ease the huge amount of pressure that astronauts are subjected to on take-off. It is this pressure relieving quality that has led to it becoming such a popular material in mattress manufacturing. The foam reacts to your body heat and moulds to your body's natural contours. This allows you to sink into the mattress ever so slightly and helps to relieve pressure that can otherwise build on your joints. It also helps to keep your spine aligned and this is why it has been embraced by orthopaedic mattress manufacturers with such vigour.

Reflex Foam

This is sometimes confused with memory foam and they do share some properties, but they are very much distinct entities. Whereas memory foam has millions of little air bubbles which can expel their air completely when pressure is applied to the mattress, the bubbles in reflex foam are bigger and rather than expelling the air completely it is just "squeezed", much like happens in a balloon when you try to squash it. This means that the foam still bounces back but it doesn't allow you to sink into the mattress and makes for a firmer foam that is well suited to orthopaedic mattresses. It makes for a comfortable experience and is also cheaper to produce and therefore makes for a cheaper mattress.

Latex Foam

Latex foam is a relatively new addition to the mattress family less people seem to know of it and of its fantastic benefits. This is a fantastic foam and the only real downside being the price of natural latex foam making mattresses made from it quite expensive. Latex has pretty much all the same properties as memory foam but two important differences. Latex doesn't react to heat in order to mould to your body shape so it doesn't retain as much heat and become too warm as memory foam can. This makes for a much more pleasant sleeping environment as the latex naturally keeps you cooler in the night. The second difference is that latex moves with you in the night unlike memory foam which will mould to your body shape and then take time to bounce back. Latex is much more malleable and should you toss and turn during the night it will move with you and stay moulded to your body shape.

All the foams have their positives and negatives and it is a case of deciding which is right for you. You can also buy a sprung mattress which has a layer of one or more of these foams on top, meaning you get the best of both worlds, so don't forget to consider this option as well.