Cloth Diapering – The Health Benefits
At one point, the only option we had for keeping our babies clean was the cloth diaper. Now, disposable diapers are not only available – they’re the norm. Cloth diapers have become a choice, instead of the default, and many people wonder why we’d use something so inconvenient. The answer is that cloth diapers may offer significant health benefits over manufactured disposable diapers. Let’s take a look at the benefits of diapering with cloth – health, environmental and budgetary.
There are a lot of pluses that come with using cloth diapers. They’re cheaper, even when you consider what it’ll cost to do the laundry or pay a diaper service, and they’re just about as convenient. After all, many disposable diapers recommend flushing the contents of the diaper before you throw it away, making it take just as much time as cloth. Diapering with cloth prevents disposable diapers from taking up space in landfills, and allows you to reuse your diaper. Just be sure you choose laundry methods or a diaper service that uses environmentally friendly cleaning methods.
Many people are worried that cloth diapers will be bulky, require lots of sharp pins, and get in the way. That’s not really the case anymore, however. There are many different options for diapering now, and we can more easily keep our children clean and safe. Remember – the average baby spends about twenty-five thousand hours wearing a diaper, and that diaper will be changed six to eight thousand times. Wouldn’t you want all those hours to be comfortable, safe one?
Your baby may be healthier if you choose cloth. A regularly changed cloth diaper is less likely to cause diaper rash, and will make it a lot less severe. Disposable diapers also contain a number of chemicals that experts are concerned about. The average disposable diaper is the product of a lot of careful engineering. It’s made up of a waterproof outer layer (almost always polyethylene,) tissue and cellulose, non woven fabric, elastic, hot melt adhesive, and a super absorbant substance called sodium polyacrylate. Colored diapers will also contain dyes.
The biggest concerns revolve aroung the super absorbant sodium polyacrylate. This material is a fine, granular substance that may look like table salt. Sometimes, it comes out of a diaper while you’re changing your child, and can stick to your baby’s skin. This type of absorbant material can absorb many times its weight in liquid, and turns into a gel. It’s also been banned from use in tampons, since it has been linked to toxic shock syndrome. While your child’s exposure to sodium polyacrylate in a diaper isn’t as direct as a woman’s exposure to it in a tampon, that’s still a reason to worry. Toxic shock syndrome can be fatal.
Other health issues that may be caused by disposable diapers, but aren’t present in cloth diapers, include diaper dye dermatitis. The blue, pink, and green dyes used to make baby diapers look more appealing may also be allergens, and can cause a form of diaper rash in some children. Nearly all cloth diapers are white, to enable easy cleaning, and don’t have this problem. Other chemicals which may be present in disposable diapers include dioxins, which are a by product of the paper bleaching process, and may exist in the cellulose used in the diaper, and the offgassing of plastic in the diaper, which has been linked to asthma.
In 2008, eight brands of disposable diapers were found to include tributylin biocide, an organo tin compound that has been blamed for disruption of hormonal functions and damange to the immune system. This substance isn’t an ingredient in disposable diapers, but may be present as a contaminant. We don’t currently test diapers for these substances on a routine basis. The plastic covering of a disposable diaper may also be to blame for fertility issues later in life. Disposable diapers can create a warmer environment around the scrotum. This has caused concern about the possible side effects on male fertility.
Disposable diapers haven’t been proven to cause significant health problems, but they do give us reason to worry. There are plenty of reasons why using cloth diapers is the safer, healthier, more responsible thing to do. Take the time to investigate your options for cloth diapering before your child is born, and choose the option that will keep your baby in the best health possible. When used responsibly, cloth diapers are better for our children and our world.
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