The “base ingredients” present in Pampers’ Easy Ups, Baby Dry, Swaddlers, and Cruisers, as well as all the products, include: petroleum, polyethylene, polypropylene, and
perfume.
continued from page 54
oping fetuses and newborn babies.12 Tese harmful
substances are theoretically contained inside the diaper, but I worry that they may also be getting onto a baby’s skin and even into his body. Anyone who’s used conventional plastic diapers
knows that the stuff inside the diapers sometimes comes out. We’ve all seen the small white beads of gel on a baby’s skin when changing a diaper that’s been on too long. Diaper manufacturers even warn consum- ers that the diapers should not be torn or ripped. A warning label on a package of Pampers Extra Protection con- siders this product a choking hazard: “To avoid risk of choking . . . do not allow your child to tear the diaper or handle any loose pieces of the diaper. Discard any torn or unsealed diaper or any loose pieces.” If you’re wondering, as I was, what else is in a plas-
Sweden,
having
concluded that plastic diapers use three times as many
resources
as cloth, is
considering a financial
rebate
for families who invest in cloth
diapering.
natural
processed wood pulp, “absorbent gelling material,”
Luvs
Dioxins can be toxic and persistent, stick around in the
environment for a long time, and accumulate in our bodies.
JAY BOLUS
that doesn’t give you pause, discovering the nature of the contents of these diapers will. Te customer- service representative, aſter a good deal of awkward silence and hemming and hawing, will tell you that, among other things, the “base ingredients” present in Pampers’ Easy Ups, Baby Dry, Swaddlers, and Cruis- ers, as well as all the Luvs products, include: petro- leum, polyethylene, processed wood pulp, “absorbent gelling material,” polypropylene, and perfume (to mask the chemical odors of the other ingredients). You can then spend the next ten days trying to understand the components of these different plas-
tic diaper that might be toxic to a child’s health, try calling a customer-service representative at Procter & Gamble (P&G), the company that makes Pampers and Luvs. Ask her what ingredients are in their dia- pers. With an advertisement image in your mind of a happy blond baby in an Ultra Pampers Plus, you might expect this to be a straightforward conversa- tion. Instead, the spokesperson will get very nervous on the phone, refuse to give you her name (but insist that you give her yours), remind you that the conver- sation is being recorded, put you on hold four times in 40 minutes so she can check with her boss to find out what she is “at liberty to disclose,” and tell you that you are asking about “sensitive and proprietary” information—even aſter you’ve explained that all you want to know are the names of the ingredients in the product that touches your baby’s skin every day, all day long.13 At the end of the conversation, you still won’t know
all the ingredients in a Pampers, because some of these ingredients “cannot be disclosed.” Translation:
You do not, as a consumer, have the right to know exactly what your infant is wearing on his genitals. If
58 mothering | May–June 2010
tic polymers and realizing that disposable diapers are made of petrochemical products derived from petroleum, a nonrenewable resource that has caused wars and environmental devastation, and so much of which has been extracted from the earth that pun- dits hypothesize the end of the oil age to be near. But instead of wasting all that time on hold, on the Web, and in the library, you could simply decide that you know enough already: Tese diapers are made from several kinds of plastic, dead and pulverized trees, and synthetic perfumes. In a word: yuck. Debates about the health aspects of disposable vs.
cloth diapers have centered on which makes a baby more prone to diaper rash. But the so-called scientific evidence cited to “prove” that one type of diaper is better than the other is oſten politically skewed. An oſt-cited study from 1979, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, found that infants in cloth diapers were five times less likely to get diaper rash.14 Betsy Tomas, founder and co-owner of Bummis,
a maker of cloth diapers based in Montreal, Quebec, says that if cloth diapers are used and washed cor- rectly, they can keep a baby rash-free. “In our store in Montreal we get people who have just come straight from the doctor’s office with wild rashes,” Tomas says. “Teir doctors have instructed them to buy cot- ton for their babies.”15 Diaper rash aside, what about the negative long-
LAURA SIEBERT
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