The largest chemical exposure that babies have is right under our nose... or more like right under their bottoms. Disposable diapers contain a cocktail of chemicals that many parents are completely unaware of. And many of us believe that if the word "baby" is on the packaging than its safe for baby. This is not always the case.
The following chemicals are present in almost all of the non-natural (huggies, papmers).
The following chemicals are present in almost all of the non-natural (huggies, papmers).
Dioxin (your friendly carcinogen byproduct of bleaching/chlorine)
Toluene (found in glues, and harmful when "out-gassing". Meaning when baby is breathing the fumes from their diaper)
Sodium Polyacrylate (the absorbent beads, not so much a hazard in diapers that are changed regularly... but it makes you wonder about the overnight diapers)
Toxic Waste that is non-Biodegradable. This is our biggest landfill problem in current history. The average baby puts one ton, that's two thousand pounds, of non-biodegradable toxic material into the landfill by the time they are two years old. These diapers will still be in the landfill when they are putting their first grandchild into a diaper (and their great grandchild too). Why is this a problem? Because as the plastics and chemicals in the diaper break down they leak those chemicals into our ground water.
Toluene (found in glues, and harmful when "out-gassing". Meaning when baby is breathing the fumes from their diaper)
Sodium Polyacrylate (the absorbent beads, not so much a hazard in diapers that are changed regularly... but it makes you wonder about the overnight diapers)
Toxic Waste that is non-Biodegradable. This is our biggest landfill problem in current history. The average baby puts one ton, that's two thousand pounds, of non-biodegradable toxic material into the landfill by the time they are two years old. These diapers will still be in the landfill when they are putting their first grandchild into a diaper (and their great grandchild too). Why is this a problem? Because as the plastics and chemicals in the diaper break down they leak those chemicals into our ground water.
What are the solutions? The first solution and the least expensive is cloth. I know I have said this before but, cloth diapers no longer are pins and folding. They are way cuter than disposable one (not to brag, but once you start using those cute colors and prints you can't go back, you get a little snobby about it actually. I mean look how cute that recycled K-Life t-shirt diaper is!).Another option would be to use natural diapers such as the one's I mentioned above, Seventh Generation and Gdiapers. They use more natural paper products and no bleaching. They are more biodegradable and breakdown in a few years (vs. 500). Many of these diapers are the same price as the other disposable diapers if you have them "drop shipped" from Amazon, print the coupons, or go to places like diapers.com
My new hobby (like the hobby of the week) is making Owen cloth diapers out of our old t-shirts that we loved at one time. In the picture above I used one of my old K-Life shirts from when I was a youth mentor. I used to love this shirt and its really cute as a diaper as it has Arnold on it saying, "whatchu lookin' at". Which is really cute on a baby's bottom.
***I am going to post my pattern for making cloth diapers out of 100% recycled fabrics (Including the snaps!) keep posted for my first tutorial!
***I am going to post my pattern for making cloth diapers out of 100% recycled fabrics (Including the snaps!) keep posted for my first tutorial!
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