I suspect you must live in California, where the state requires that warning labels be listed for such things. I wish ours did, especially when a good many of them are made in countries with poor safety track records.

Here's an excellent article on the subject. Notice check out the following quote:

"Any material treated with a formaldehyde-based resin gives off formaldehyde gas until it is washed or until the resin finishes "curing," a process that can take months or years."

Yet another good reason to prewash our quilting fabrics!

Annie

Here is a link that might be useful: Formaldehyde in fabrics

Yes, I'm in CA. It makes me sick to think of making a quilt for a baby which has such fabric in it. The fabrics were from China, Japan and Pakistan. I'm upset because I wanted to make a quilt, and now my heart isn't in it. I wonder if purchased items have formaldehyde.

I've also e-mailed Joann's.

I had no idea. Thank you for pointing this out.

Connie

Seriously -

Washing will remove it. We've all been wearing fabrics with formaldehyde in them for YEARS!!!Do you wear any cotton/poly blends - formaldehyde! Have you died yet? Probably not.

Socks - make that baby quilt. Prewash the fabrics, and then wash the quilt, and don't worry about it!

Sometimes I hate the internet age - there's simply too much information, but no context to it. On the order of "OMG, One person DIED from exposure to X!!!" No mention of the 15 million people exposed to X with no bad effects at all.

I worked in a pathology/histology lab for years and years, exposed to formaldehyde and other more noxious chemicals every day, and washing it out will work just fine.

Mary C is right. Wash it and you have nothing to worry about.
All children's clothing in this country is treated with a fire retardant so that it won't burn easily - usually that chemical is formaldehyde. Any wrinkle-resistant clothing you buy is wrinkle resistant because it's treated with formaldehyde. Most fabric is treated with formaldehyde so that it won't mildew in storage. The smell of a fabric store, including your favorite quilt shop, is likely to be formaldehyde because it's used in large quantities to give new fabric its stiffness. Wash it, and that stiffness disappears.
In high doses it can be hazardous, but so can most chemicals.
Read up. Be informed. Don't over-react. Pre-wash your fabrics and don't buy wrinkle-resistant clothing for babies. Let them sleep in fire-retardant clothing because the exposure is slight and the benefits far outweigh the risk.

Well, I wouldn't hesitate to buy anything made in Japan. Their technology is stellar, and they're anything BUT a developing country. I am hesitant about some other Asian countries, given the track record lately.

Fire retardant? This is an important factor with Children's bedding. As said before the benefits probably outweigh the risks. One of my daughter's winter coats, many years ago wasn't. She came too near a flame, and the thing ignited with passion. I was able to grab her and extinguish it immediately, but it made a believer out of me with children and flammable clothing.

I'm one of those people who are practically Luddite with my food and lifestyle. Like Mary C, part of my life was spent in the manufacturing industry in the engineering labs. I've worked with everything from radiation to lead and most organic compounds in between. I have a healthy respect for them, and a fear of the effects of my exposures and those we come into contact with in everyday life. We don't always keel over immediately from harmful substances, but have cummulative effects from chemicals they've found to be carcinogenic or mutagenic. But, they are absolutely everywhere around us, and even if you abstained from using products with them as a components, you breath it and drink it in your water.

So, it doesn't surprise me at all there is warning labels on the material. But, if you should purchase a blanket or quilt, it will be the same story.

Thank you everyone, and Damascu for the link. I suspect it's true that the formaldehyde is in manufactured goods as well as fabrics, so it's unavoidable unless you grow cotton and weave your own fabric! Anyway, I'll have to do a little more research on the internet and think a bit more about it. It's for my first grandchild, so you can understand why I'm a little "wound up".

Joanns has not replied, but maybe the long weekend caused a delay. And maybe they just don't want to reply.

Mary C is not correct - washing the fabric will not remove the formaldehyde (See this study, among others: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/3833/1/dv04119.pdf) Studies have found that washing does not remove the formaldehyde - and that's not hard to understand because manufacturers which need to impart characteristics like wrinkle resistance are not going to have pleased customers if the wrinkle resistance washes out! And Mary C's comment that, though we have been using formaldehyde infused cotton/poly blends for years - and not died - is a fair comment. But even though you have not died, have you had headaches, eczema, eye and/or respiratory irritation, sleep disturbance, memory loss, dizziness, chronic fatigue - all of these are associated with formaldehyde - as is leukemia. A way to avoid formaldehyde is to buy fabrics that have third party certification, like Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) or Oeko-Tex. These certified fabrics are hard to find now, but if we keep asking for them the market will respond. We've tried to talk about these sorts of textile issues in our blog at www.oecotextiles.com. Leigh Van Dusen
Leigh Anne

Here is a link that might be useful: O Ecotextiles

As someone who is incredibly sensitive to these chemicals in fabrics, I can tell you the reactions I have are real, painful, and lasting when exposed. Not all chemicals wash out. Please do look for chemical free for your safety and so the industry stops producing fabrics in this way.