Best Mattress for Pregnancy

Getting a good night’s sleep is crucial to you and your baby’s health. But between nausea, heartburn, backache, and night sweats, pregnancy puts your body through a challenging series of changes that can make sleep difficult to attain. More than ever, you’ll require a mattress that can relieve pressure from sensitive areas while still providing support for your growing baby bump. The right mattress can help keep discomfort at bay and have an enormous impact on the quality of your sleep.

How to Choose the Best Mattress for Pregnancy

When you’re pregnant, each trimester will bring new challenges to your sleep. The first trimester heralds rising progesterone levels which result in daytime sleepiness. Some women may also start experiencing tender breasts, nausea, night sweats, and a more frequent need to urinate.

As you move to the second trimester, hormone levels even out. You may feel more energetic, but many women experience nightmares and heartburn.

For most women, the third trimester represents the heaviest blow to their sleep. This is when the weight of the baby bump starts to cause serious lower back pain. In addition, women commonly experience frequent nighttime awakening, restless legs syndrome, and snoring during the third trimester.

It can be difficult to choose a mattress for pregnancy, given that your body is constantly changing. If you sleep with a partner, you’ll also have to take their concerns into account. Ideally, you’ll find a mattress that suits your regular sleeping style as well, since hopefully you’ll be using your mattress for years to come.

In the following sections, we’ll discuss mattress construction, firmness levels, and how these affect mattress performance for pregnant women. We’ll also discuss why it’s important to get quality sleep during pregnancy, and cover some of the most important things to look for when choosing a mattress for pregnancy.

Why is Sleep Important for Pregnancy?

Sleep deprivation during pregnancy has been linked to postpartum depression, preterm delivery, gestational diabetes, fetus size, longer labor and a higher chance of cesarean delivery. That’s not to mention the general effects of sleep deprivation, which include slower reaction time, negative mood, and a weakened immune system, among others. Unfortunately, getting quality sleep when you’re pregnant is easier said than done.

Research shows that pregnant women are more likely to suffer from sleep disorders such as sleep apnea, heartburn, and restless legs syndrome. In addition, pregnant women tend to experience nausea, insomnia, anxiety over childbirth, back pain, fetal movements, and a frequent need to visit the bathroom, all of which can interfere with sleep quality.

Investing in a good mattress is the first step to improving your sleep during pregnancy. For more advice, read our article on how to get better sleep during pregnancy.

What to Look for in a Mattress for Pregnancy

The mattress industry is full of complicated jargon which can make it seem like an impossible task to understand how one mattress is better than another. In reality, it’s simpler than it seems.

All mattresses have two principal functions: to provide spinal support and pressure relief. They accomplish this using a combination of support layers and comfort layers.

Secondary to support and pressure relief are factors like temperature regulation and motion isolation, which are also important during your pregnancy. Following are some key points and a simple explanation of the most important things to look for in a mattress when you’re expecting.

• Price: Pregnancy is a big investment, and many expecting couples may not have the money to spend a few thousand dollars on a new mattress. You’ll have to weigh the benefits of quality sleep against the price, taking into consideration that a mattress should last you a good 6 to 7 years at least. It is a common misconception that a high-quality mattress will cost thousands of dollars. While this may be true for some models, there are several cheap mattress options that offer the same high-quality materials and strong performance as many of their more expensive counterparts. Most online mattress manufacturers offer payment plans that allow you to pay off your mattress in monthly installments.

• Sleeping Position: In the second and third trimester, doctors recommend that women sleep on their left side as it’s safest for the baby. Side sleepers often experience added pressure from the hips and shoulders digging into the mattress. Since you won’t be able to change sleeping positions as often as you normally would, the best mattress for the second and third trimesters will be one that provides close contouring and generous pressure relief.

• Mattress Type: Between innerspring and all-foam, latex or hybrid, the type of mattress that’s best for pregnancy will depend on your own body type, personal preference, and preferred sleeping position. Remember that you’ll be using your mattress after your pregnancy ends, so try to choose one that suits your regular body type and position preference as well as your changing needs during pregnancy.

• Contouring: Memory foam is the closest-conforming material, forming a “hug” that helps distribute body weight and reduce pressure points when sleeping on your side during pregnancy. Latex also conforms to a certain extent, and many hybrid mattresses use foam or comfort layers that offer a significant level of conforming.

• Quality Materials: The average lifespan of a mattress before it starts developing permanent body indentations or sagging is 6 to 7 years. Denser foams, natural latex, higher coil counts, thicker coil gauges, and other markers of high-quality construction can help guide you towards a more durable mattress.

• Firmness Level: Pregnant women will likely find that their firmness preferences change as the pregnancy progresses, making it difficult to settle on either a firm or soft mattress for pregnancy. You’ll be putting added pressure on your mattress as your baby grows, so you’ll need to have a mattress that continues to provide pressure relief without sagging under the extra weight. You may want to consider a flippable mattress or an airbed with adjustable firmness as you undergo changes in weight and eventually switch to sleeping on your side during your third trimester. Another option is to use a mattress topper for part of your term. If you and your partner have trouble deciding on a firmness level, you may opt to get a mattress with a different firmness on each side, or two twin XL mattresses that you can put together to make a split-king bed.

• Pressure Relief: Many pregnant women will prefer close-conforming mattresses that provide above-average pressure relief. That said, mattresses that allow too much sink may lead to pressure build-up due to inadequate spinal support.

• Edge Support: A bed with strong edge support can give better leverage when getting in and out of bed, which is important as your belly grows and you find yourself making frequent bathroom visits. Thanks to their coils, hybrid mattresses and innerspring mattresses tend to have the best edge support.

• Temperature Regulation: Many pregnant women suffer from night sweats due to changing hormones. If this sounds like you, try looking for a mattress with better airflow or more breathable materials to combat overheating. Hybrid and latex mattresses tend to be the most temperature-neutral, although some all-foam mattresses successfully use gel infusions or other techniques to reduce heat retention.

• Noise: Expecting couples need their sleep, so it’s important to choose a quiet mattress that doesn’t squeak and creak every time a person rolls over or gets up to visit the bathroom. All-foam or latex models make little to no noise, and hybrid mattresses make less noise than traditional innersprings thanks to the individually wrapped coils.

Which Type of Mattress is Best for Pregnancy?

Mattress types can be broken down into 5 general categories, each of which has particular advantages and disadvantages. That being said, you’ll find many variations within these categories depending on the quality, composition, and extra features used by each mattress manufacturer.

Hybrid

Definition: To qualify as a hybrid mattress, a mattress must have a significant comfort layer section over an innerspring support core, which is usually pocketed coils. The comfort layers can be made of latex, memory foam, polyfoam, micro-coils, wool, down, cotton, or fiber-fill.

Highlight: Balanced Feel. Hybrids tend to offer pressure relief and motion isolation rivaling all-foam beds, while the coils provide the increased airflow, reinforced edges, and more robust spinal support of an innerspring mattress.

Innerspring

Definition: Most people grew up with an innerspring mattress, which is mostly made of metal coils and may feature a thin layer of cotton or polyfoam on top. Innerspring mattresses rarely trap heat and they offer good edge support, but they lack pressure relief and tend to transfer motion to a significant extent.

Highlight: Ease of Movement. Innerspring mattresses have a bouncy surface and negligible sagging along the edges, making them easy to hop in and out of when you’re visiting the bathroom.

Latex

Definition: All-latex mattresses use latex in the comfort layers as well as the support core. Latex can be either natural or synthetic. Natural latex is breathable, durable, and quite responsive. It contours somewhat to relieve pressure points but can also be made in a firmer version that provides a stable support core.

Highlight: Cool Conforming. Latex offers pressure relief nearing that of memory foam, but without the heat retention.

Airbed

Definition: Airbeds are characterized by the air chambers in their support core, which can be inflated or deflated to adjust the firmness level according to the user’s preference. Most high-end airbeds include additional comfort layers over the air chambers, such as foam or latex.

Highlight: Customizable Firmness. Airbeds sometimes offer as many as 50 different firmness levels that you can adjust as often as you want. This may be ideal as the body’s needs progress throughout pregnancy. For couples who are expecting, it also allows each partner to choose their own firmness level.

Foam

Definition: Polyurethane foam (polyfoam) and its close cousin, memory foam, are synthetic materials that can be engineered to have a variety of characteristics. All-foam mattresses tend to have a high-density polyfoam support core with one or more plusher comfort layers to add pressure relief and prevent motion transfer. Some foam mattresses also include latex.

Highlight: Close Conforming. All-foam mattresses, especially those with memory foam comfort layers, contour more closely than any other material to provide relief from pressure points. This can help reduce pain in pregnant women, especially when sleeping on the side.

Which Mattress Firmness is Best for Pregnancy?

Mattress firmness is usually measured on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being extremely plush and 10 being extremely firm.

Generally speaking, side sleepers and people who weigh less than 130 pounds are most comfortable on a plusher mattress that conforms closely to align the spine and reduce pressure points. Stomach sleepers and people who weigh more than 230 pounds require a firmer surface that keeps the spine aligned by preventing heavier body parts from sinking too far into the mattress. Back sleepers and people between 130 and 230 pounds do best on a mattress that provides an even balance of spinal support and pressure relief.

Your needs are slightly different during pregnancy. A mattress that is too plush can sag under the weight of your growing baby, potentially contributing to back pain. But even though your body weight is increasing, you still need a sleeping surface that will conform enough to relieve pressure points in sensitive areas.

During your second and third trimester, as you start sleeping exclusively on your left side, your mattress has the dual job of cushioning the hips and shoulders while still supporting the spine. Pregnant women may benefit from a zoned mattress that’s firmer in strategic areas, providing alternate pressure relief and support where needed.

Memory foam comfort layers tend to be more plush while latex tends to be firmer, although this is not a hard-and-fast rule. Firmness is a personal choice and regardless of your body type or preferred sleep position, you may simply prefer a firmer or softer mattress. When choosing your mattress, try to consider what your needs will be during pregnancy as well as what kind of mattress you generally prefer sleeping on, for after the baby is born.

How We Test: Your Comfort Is Our Science

Our industry-leading product testing team cares deeply about improving your sleep. Having a holistic understanding of a mattress’s role as part of a sleep system is paramount to our testing process. Since a bed’s comfort and feel depend largely on body weight and sleeping position, our testing team represents a wide range of body types, sleep positions, and comfort preferences.

In our Seattle-based Test Lab, we use an objective, hands-on process to evaluate mattresses across performance categories. The following are the key guidelines that inform our performance ratings. Our ultimate goal is to ensure you have all the information you need to make the best purchase decision for you.

How We Determine Our Overall Scores

To determine a mattress’s overall score, we assign weighted percentages to performance categories based on how important they are to the individual sleep experience. For instance, areas like pressure relief and temperature control tend to matter more to people than something like off-gassing, and because more people sleep on their side and back than on their stomach, we weigh those positions more heavily

Dive Deeper – Mattress Guides by Purpose

If you’re still not sure you’ve found a mattress that meets all of your needs, take a look at our recommendations broken down by mattresses that target specific pain points.