Benefits of Cloth
Cost Friendly
Considering the rising cost of disposable diapers, cloth diapers are cheaper than ever. On average a child who wears disposables will be in diapers until 3 years old and one who wears cloth will be in diapers until 2.5 years old. Most name-brand diapers cost around $20 per week (based on the price for the economy box).
(in disposable diapers)
34 cents per diaper
x 9 diapers a day
= $3,350
(in cloth diapers)
26 cents per diaper
x 9 diapers a day
=$1970
Using cloth diapers will not only save you weekly, but it will save you in the long run when the time comes to potty train. In 1999, the New York Times reported that in 1957 92% of children were toilet trained by 18 months. That makes the cloth diaper children of the 1950's toilet training roughly a year and half earlier than the national average of today's 3 year old children wearing disposable diapers. The reason for this is that disposable diapers do such a wonderful job absorbing urine that a small child has a difficult time making the connection between being wet and uncomfortable with using the bathroom.
A Wall Street Journal article from May 2000 reported that "children now wear diapers until they are 36 to 42 months, some 6 months longer that they did 16 years ago." It was 15 years prior to that report, in 1985, that a disposable diaper company introduced the super absorbent gelling material.
*Numbers in the chart are based on the national average of month for children in disposable diapers verses cloth diapers, and the average per diaper price of name brand diapers at local stores verses the average per diaper cost using this service.
Baby Friendly
Cloth diapers are made of that natural fabric that sits against our bottoms every day, cotton. Cotton is a naturally absorbent, breathable material. This breathability helps ammonia, a by-product of urine, evaporate from the skin. Before the invention of disposable diapers in the mid-twentieth century, all children wore cloth diapers and neither parents nor children were worse for it.
Compared to the 100% natural cloth diapers, disposable diapers are made of wood pulp and harsh chemicals. According to the website thenewparentsguide.com, chemicals in disposable diapers include dioxin and sodium polyarcylate. Dioxin, a by-product of the paper bleaching process, has been linked to cancer, birth defects, liver damage, and skin disease; while, sodium polyarcylate is potentially lethal to pets and was linked in the 1980's to causing toxic shock syndrome in tampons.
Remember how once upon time all children wore cloth diapers? Well, based on studies in 1991, 90% of children were wearing disposables, and of those children 78% experienced diaper rash. However, in the 1950's only 7% of children experienced diaper rash (National Association of Diaper Services). This is not saying that cloth diapers will completely prevent diaper rash. A baby needs to be changed as soon as possible after soiling a diaper which is roughly every two hours (depending on age, feeding schedule, and health factors). The benefit to a cloth diaper is that the nature of the cotton material will allow you and baby to know when the diaper is soiled sooner. In contrast, a disposable diaper's super absorbent material gives the feeling of dryness even after the baby is wet; thus, allowing harmful bacteria to sit next to your baby's skin.
Eco-Friendly
According to the South Carolina Department of Health and Education, disposable plastic diapers account for about two percent of the total U.S. landfill volume. According to newparentsguide.com, "some disposables are said to be biodegradable; in order for these diapers to decompose, they must be exposed to air (oxygen) and sun. Since this is highly unlikely, it can take several hundred years for the decomposition of disposables to take place, with some of the plastic material never decomposing." The average disposable diaper takes 450 years to decompose in water and 500 years in landfills.
Disposable diapers are composed of a waterproof polypropylene outer layer and an inner fluff layer composed of wood pulp, sodium polyacrylate, and various other substances. This amounts to 82,000 tons of plastic and 1.3 million tons of wood pulp or 250,000 trees. Using cloth diapers at home amounts up to flushing your toilet four to five times a day; therefore, using a diaper service, which washes in bulk, will reduce the amount of energy and water used.
For further information on the Benefits of Cloth Diapering or to see where I got my information please see the following links.
National Association of Diaper Services
Tiny Tots.com - Toilet Training Learning Center
