An oft-cited study from 1979, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, found that diapers were
five times less likely to get
diaper rash.
ing resale market for the more expensive diapers. My fourth child was born in November 2009—as a cloth- diaper consumer today, I have far more choices than I did even ten years ago, when my oldest was born. It’s exciting to have such easy access to information and so many choices. But it can be a bit overwhelming. “For my daughter, we started off using a variety
of different types because we weren’t sure what was going to work,” says Alma Gordillo, a 28-year-old mother of two, both still in diapers, in Houston, Texas.4
Gordillo quickly found that she didn’t like
fitted cloth diapers for her daughter but loved the Jam- Tot BerryPlush diapers and Bottombumpers, Ameri- can-made AIOs sewn by a family-run business based in Albion, Illinois.
If you’re buying cloth diapers primarily to save
Conventionally bleached
disposable diapers
trace amounts of
contain
dioxin,
a carcinogenic by-product
of the paper- bleaching process.
money, the no-fuss, no-frills option is to buy one, two, or three dozen prefolds (depending on your bud- get and how oſten you plan to do laundry) and two or three waterproof covers in your baby’s size. Simply put the diaper on folded in thirds inside the cover, or have fun browsing the Internet for tutorials on fancier folding techniques (a quick Google search on “how to fold a cloth diaper” yields thousands of Web pages on which that phrase appears). You don’t need to wash the covers unless they’re soiled. You’ll also need a bucket (preferably one with a lid, though ours doesn’t have one) to soak the soiled diapers in, and two sizes of waterproof bags: a smaller one to carry wet diapers when you’re out and about, and a larger laundry bag with a drawstring in which you can keep wet ones until you wash them.
But if you’re intrigued by the different options,
want to experiment, and don’t mind spending
some money on startup costs, it’s fun to go beyond simple prefolds and covers to find the best system for you. (New parents, beware: Partners don’t always agree on this, so you might end up in a mixed mar- riage with two systems.) Gordillo tested a variety of diapers to find out which best fit her baby’s body and felt right for the family. Several cloth-diaper retailers, including Sunshine Diapers (
www.sunshinediapers.
com)5
and Diaper Daisy (
http://diaperdaisy.com),6
54 mothering | May–June 2010
infants in cloth
allow parents to try a variety of diapers for a “rental” fee. When you return the rented diapers, you get a credit that can be applied to a subsequent purchase of the system of your choice. You can also buy gently used diapers in excellent condition at
www.myused
diapers.com,7
www.diaperswappers.com,8
and the “gen-
tly used” section of
http://diaperdaisy.com, as well as
www.craigslist.org and the cloth-diapering forums at
www.mothering.com.
While trying different options may sound expen-
sive, Gordillo resold the diapers she decided not to use. Seventy percent of the time, she says, she got back all the money she spent. (If you’re wondering how she came up with such a precise number, Gor- dillo, a high-powered CEO, is a self-described nerd who keeps Excel spreadsheets about her diaper use.) McMahon also says the pricier diapers she bought didn’t lose value even aſter Penelope had used them for over a year: “Te best part was, when I was fin- ished with the diapers, I sold them at auction for exactly what I paid for them!”9
cloth is better for the baby
One of the main reasons I’ve used cloth on all of my children is that, as a mom, I have a viscerally nega- tive reaction to the idea of a baby having his most intimate parts in contact with plastic all day, every day, for years. Not only do disposable diapers contain several different plastics, but conventionally bleached disposable diapers contain trace amounts of dioxin, a carcinogenic by-product of the paper-bleaching process.10
Jay Bolus, a researcher who has been work-
ing on environmental and health issues for 14 years and is currently vice president of technical operations for MBDC, a company that helps businesses evalu- ate how sustainable their products are, puts it most concisely: “Te chlorine bleaching process makes this really toxic stuff,” he tells me. “Dioxins can be toxic and persistent, stick around in the environment for a long time, and accumulate in our bodies.”11
Te World
Health Organization (WHO) hypothesizes that dioxin exposure has the most serious consequences on devel-
continued on page 58
STEPHANIE DAME
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109