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The Benefits of Cloth Diapers

Moms in-the-know have discovered that cloth diapers are suddenly making a comeback. They have been reinvented over the last decade, and now there are more reasons than ever to choose this healthy (and oh-so-cute!) diapering style for your baby.

Healthier for your baby

Like most moms, I worry about my family's exposure to chemicals. I know that those absorbent gel crystals and bleached papers can't be good for my baby's skin. Disposable diapers contain super absorbent polymers that can cause skin irritations and severe allergic reactions. These chemicals are the reason diaper rash has become an everyday problem.

Did you know that in our grandmother's era, diaper rash was a rare occurrence? The soft cotton, hemp, and fleece used in today's cloth diapers will keep your baby's skin healthy, and eliminate the exposure to toxic chemicals.

Economical

Cloth diapers will save you money! Reuse them with multiple children, and multiply the savings.

Environmentally Sound

Now, I am not someone who claims to be very crunchy—I don't eat much granola, and I've never even worn Birkenstocks. But you don't have to be crunchy to care about the environment. And the idea of almost 6000 dirty diapers piling up from my baby alone just seemed outrageous to me. That equals one ton of waste! And did you know that, by law, the solid waste is supposed to be dumped into the toilet? Infectious fecal matter should be treated by sewage systems, not piled into the ground to pollute our ground water. Disposable diapering is just not a sustainable solution for any community.

No pins, no dunking

Now, you may be wondering about the messy part. And the good news is that modern cloth diapering is not your grandma's cloth diapering. No smelly vats of dirty diaper pails and hand-dunking in toilets for today's moms! Flushable liners make flushing away poop a cinch, and keeping a simple diaper pail of cloth diapers actually has less odor than those complicated disposable diaper sausage contraptions on all the baby registries. It's true!

Today's cloth diapers have all the improvements modern technology and textiles provide: breathable and waterproof covers, Velcro and snap closures, soft fleece interiors, absorbent and antimicrobial fabrics, and biodegradable liners. No more diaper pins, no dunking, and definitely no bleach. There are numerous diaper styles and systems to fit every baby, and every mom's budget.

Cloth diapers are healthier than disposables, environmentally responsible, more comfortable, more economical, more convenient, and definitely more stylish than ever. So why NOT choose cloth diapers?

You and your baby can make a ton of difference!

Did you know that each baby in disposables adds one ton of diaper waste to your community's landfill? By switching to reusable cloth diapers, you and your baby make a huge difference for your community. Other diaper facts you should know:

• Over 27 billion disposable diapers are dumped into U.S. landfills every year.
• Disposable diapers take an estimated 250-500 years to decompose.
• Disposables contain traces of dioxin, listed by the EPA as the most toxic of all cancer-linked chemicals.
• Disposables contain sodium polyacrylate, a super absorbent polymer that can cause skin irritations, severe allergic reactions, and even toxic shock syndrome.
• Before disposables were used, only an estimated 7% of babies got diaper rash. After the spread of disposables, the number jumped to 78%.
• Americans spend about $7 billion on disposables every year. If every family switched to reusable diapers, we would save more than $6 billion, enough to feed about 2.5 million hungry American children for an entire year.

(Source: Real Diaper Association)