6 Good Reasons To Use Cloth Diapers

1. You want to protect your baby from chemicals.

There is a huge market for organic foods for baby because of the concern of pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used in food production. There is also a growing market for organic clothing, bedding and furniture for baby. But what about diapers - the very thing that is against the most sensitive part of your baby for the first few years of their life? If you read my article on menstrual products then you already know about the chemicals used in the bleaching natural fibers and the synthetic blended fibers and plastics used in menstrual products. Diapers are no different but have the added negative effect of being worn all day every day and some additional chemicals depending on the type of diaper you are using to improve absorbancy and to feel cold when wet or change color or other features that have emerged in the past few decades. What we don't know is the long term effects of exposure to these additional chemicals. Many things that were once thought safe are now known to be harmful, and there are a lot of problems increasing in incidence that we just don't have a reason for yet. Take dioxin for example. We do have studies directly linking dioxin exposure to endometriosis, which aside from being painful can cause infertility, in other primates, but not humans. We also have an unexplained increase in incidence of endometriosis in the past 50-100 years. The saddest part is that we pay a premium for the presumed privledge of exposing our infants to chemicals that when it comes down to it we just don't know what effects they will have. I've always thought better safe than sorry - if I've washed cloth diapers and the disposables are not harmful, I've lost nothing, but if I use them and they are harmful, there's no turning back the clock.

2. You want your baby to be comfortable.

Plastic may hold back odors and wetness, but it doesn't breathe. No matter what you do with plastic and chemical powders, you will never get the breathability of plain old natural, renewable cotton. The plastic wrapped fibers hold the wet next to your baby's body, increasing the odor and the risk of discomfort, diaper rash and even infection in the most extreme cases, which then requires more medication that your baby otherwise would not have needed. Even the chemicals in the stay dry diapers will only absorb so much before they overflow. And how well do you really want odor, wetness and chemicals held against your baby's sensitive skin? Which would you rather have, a damaged couch or an injured baby? And I'm sure you don't need a color changing diaper to know when your baby is ready for a change - parents have been figuring it out on their own for millenia. I'm sure you know, too, that a happy baby is much easier on tired new parents than a fussy, uncomfortable one, so why not invest a little time and keep your baby a lot happier.

3. You have more important things to buy for your child than a pile of disposable diapers.

If your family is anything like mine, you have to make financial choices every day. For every purchase you make, there is another purchase you don't make. In the long run, cloth diapers will save you over a thousand dollars per child, and I know several parents that kept their cloth diapers and used them for future children - they didn't spend a penny on diapers for them. Imagine what you could do for your child with an extra few hundred dollars. You could do something meaningful for them, something that would bring your family together rather than throwing it in the trash bit by bit.

4. You will never run out of diapers in the middle of the night (or the day before a paycheck).

What happens when the worst happens. Your hot water heater blows, the sewer line collapses, the car breaks down, the refrigerator dies or any of the many other urgent problems a household can have happens. You have to fix the house now, and just like that you have $7.53 left in your bank account. You have enough food in the cupboard to last you until your next paycheck, though maybe not the best food in the world. You can drink water and your fuel tanks will make it till Friday, but you can't live without diapers. This is the advantage to having almost everything in the house renewable, especially if you are economically challenged like I am. The security of knowing you will never be trying to fashion an old towel and some toilet paper into a diaper for a few days is comforting, even if the emergency never happens.

5. You want to leave your baby a clean, healthy planet to live on.

Plastic diapers fill the landfills and since the aren't biodegradable your childrens' children's diapers will join the remnants of theirs in the landfill years later if we don't stop. Maybe it's not in your backyard yet, but with 6 billion people on the planet and an ever growing population, it's only a matter of time before it gets there. There are some things we can't prevent - every society will have waste, but this is a major pollutor that could easily be stopped by switching to a natural, reusable, renewable product that is better for our children anyway.

6. You will be supporting environmentally conscious companies, work at home parents, and/or small businesses with minimal environmental impact.

While disposable diapers are made by big, greedy, polluting corporations using toxic chemicals and underpaid workers in the manufacturing process, cloth diaper manufacturers are usually the polar opposite. Usually a group of work at home parents or a small, family friendly workspace and using only natural fabrics and just enough power to run a sewing machine, these companies or sole proprioterships pay fair wages and produce little or no waste (and certainly no toxic waste). Most manufacturers of cloth diapers are also careful to select only fabrics manufactured in a natural, chemical free, sustainable way because they understand how important it is to you to keep your baby's environment chemical free and preserve the earth for their future. These individuals and small companies are also dedicated to producing a quality product, and there are some like Wallypop that price their products to be accessable for lower income families. Sarah (the owner of Wallypop) even notes that her purpose in business is not to make as much profit as possible, it is to make sure that single income families still get quality products, and she hit the mark! This is just one of the many manufacturers out there of cloth diapers, and I'd suggest that you try a few and find out what works best with your family. It would be a good idea to also get some wet bags and a diaper pail to keep down on the smell until you get a chance to wash them, and if you don't want to wash them, you can try this hand powered washing machine which takes care of small loads with less wear and tear to the fabric too. Be sure to use environmentally friendly, natural cleaning products that will not cause skin irritation for your baby. I will be doing a whole article on them coming up.