Young Brunette Girl On The Floor Posing On The Mattresses

Early mattresses contained a variety of natural materials including straw, feathers or horse hair. In the first half of the 20th century, a typical mattress sold in North America had an innerspring core and cotton batting or fiberfill. Modern mattresses usually contain either an inner spring core or materials such as latex, viscoelastic or other flexible polyurethane foams. Other fill components include insulator pads over the coils that prevent the bed's upholstery layers from cupping down into the innerspring, as well as polyester fiberfill in the bed's top upholstery layers. Mattresses may also be filled with air or water, or a variety of natural fibers, such as in futons. In 1901 the English bed maker VI-Spring introduced the first ever individually wrapped pocketed spring coil mattress.
The typical mattress sold in North America today is an innerspring; however interest in all-foam beds and so-called hybrid beds—which include an innerspring plus high-end foams, such as visco-elastic or latex, in the comfort layers—is increasing. In Europe, polyurethane foam cores and latex cores have long been popular and make up a much larger proportion of the mattresses sold.