A popular baby shower decoration is to make a three-tiered cake out of disposable diapers.
Indeed, the diaper industry has done direct-to-consumer advertising for years to convince parents that plastic, single-use, throw-away diapers are the easier and best option.
Jamie Syken and his wife Melissa owned an eco-friendly baby store called Growing Green Baby in Ashland, Oregon, for many years. They have three children: Jonathan, who’s 12 (and attended the same learning pod as my 11-year-old in 2020); Theo, who’s 9; and baby Evelyn, who’s just five months old.
The Sykens don’t think disposable diapers are time-saving, safe, or convenient. They don’t like single-use diapers for two main reasons: the negative health effects and the inconvenience. Instead, they’ve used cloth diapers for all of their kids.
How Many Diapers Are We Talking About?
Every baby is different, but most newborns urinate between 6 and 10 times per day, if not more, and defecate at least 3 times per day. Since single-use plastic diapers can hold a lot of liquid, most parents don’t change a baby every time they pee. Still, you’re likely to go through an average of six to eight diapers per day. That means a baby soils, on average, more than 6,000 diapers during the first two years of their lives.Plastic Diapers Aren’t Actually “Disposable”
When my oldest brother was born in 1959, cloth diapers were the only choice. By the time my mom had her second baby, not quite two years later, the first throw-away single-use diapers were available for purchase.“People say, ‘Take the trash out,’” my mom, a prominent microbiologist and noted environmentalist, said years ago when I asked her why she objected to plastic products. “Out where? Where do you think it goes?”
Single-Use Diapers Off-Gas
Jamie Syken also objected to how bad plastic diapers smell. Open a package and you’ll get a whiff. He told me that he doesn’t think “off-gassing of ... plastics 10 inches from your baby’s face” is healthy.That study found that measurable amounts of various chemicals, including ethylbenzene, isopropylbenzene, styrene, tolune, and xylene, off-gassed from the diapers, leading the researchers to hypothesize that they were the cause of mice’s respiratory distress.
“Disposable diapers should be considered as one of the factors that might cause or exacerbate asthmatic conditions,” the researchers wrote.
Too Hot?
In addition to concerns about asthma, single-use plastic diapers are likely more unhealthy for boys than for girls. In order to keep sperm healthy, male genitalia must stay at a cooler temperature than 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s why the male reproductive organs are outside the body. But disposable diapers keep the genital area hotter than is healthy for sperm production and mobility, especially when not changed frequently.“The physiological testicular cooling mechanism is blunted and often completely abolished during plastic nappy use,” the scientists wrote.
Pollution in the Pacific
J. Maarten Troost, author of “The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific," detailed how disposable diaper waste has even reached a remote island in an atoll in the Republic of Kiribati, 5,000 miles from anywhere.More Sustainable Than Single-Use: Cloth Diapers
Gone are the days of flat diapers and pins (though some retro-chic parents still use those). Now there are dozens of different reusable diaper systems, including cloth diapers—usually made from cotton, hemp, or wool—that use Velcro or snaps to fit snugly, pocket diapers, and all-in-ones. All-in-ones, which are popular and easy to use, are reusable diapers that have the cover and the absorbent material inside attached together. You can find them with boldly printed covers decorated with U.S. flags, monkeys-and-hearts, sailboats, and any other pattern of which you can think.Making the Switch
Parents who love fluff are happy and eager to help newbies, share advice, and get you started with some hand-me-downs. There are online chat groups and demo videos, and diaper experts abound.Kaila Dawson, a mother of three who lives in Pierson, Florida, switched from plastic to cloth diapers when her oldest, Micah, was four months old. She made the change because single-use plastic diapers gave her newborn diaper rash.
“Cloth diapering was really easy,” Dawson insists.
“The only reason I really took a break was that we moved, and it took a while to find the cloth diapers when we were unpacking,” she said, noting that she had a poor-quality laundry machine that made it hard to get the diapers clean.
Shagena was very happy using cloth diapers with Farrah.
“I loved that they were more comfortable for my baby,” she said. “I loved that I was helping keep the environment healthy and not adding to the landfills. I loved that I knew my baby had only natural fibers against her skin without any harsh chemicals or toxins. ... And the adorable fabrics and patterns made it so much fun. She looked dressed up even in the summertime when she refused to wear clothes.”
There are so many things to love about reusable diapers.
Going Diaper-Free
How fast children learn to use the potty is another factor: Disposables are so absorbent that babies don’t feel the wetness when they pee. The average age of potty training has continued to go up in the United States, where it isn’t uncommon to see a 4- or 5-year-old still wearing diapers. While part of that may be due to the rise of special needs in children, it’s much harder to learn to use the potty without physical cues. Children wearing cloth diapers tend to learn more easily.Some parents help their babies potty train from an early age by reading the infant’s cues and teaching them to associate a sound (like a soft grunt or a whoosh noise) with elimination. Inspired by Christine Gross-Loh’s book, “The Diaper-Free Baby,” my husband and I did that with our youngest. When we thought she needed to go, we simply took off her diaper and held her over the toilet or a little white bowl. When she peed, we made a sh-sh-sh sound. She learned to associate peeing with that noise and started peeing only when her diaper was off. Our fourth baby never had a diaper rash and barely ever soiled a diaper.
Potty Pants
Sean Wang and his wife have a diaper-free system to help toddlers learn to go in the toilet and not in their diapers or pants. Wang said his wife and he tried everything to potty train their toddler in their Brooklyn apartment, but their son refused to go unless he was wearing a diaper.“Just as we were about to give up, I called my parents for advice, and they reminded me that I was potty trained at 15 months old ... in China and told me about these Chinese split crotch pants,” he said.
To his surprise, within minutes of wearing them, his son went to sit on the potty and peed for the first time on his own.
“That’s when we knew we had something that could help him and other children to potty train,” Wang said.
So he started a business, PottyPants, which makes crotch-less pants for U.S. children.
“I want to tell parents out there who are struggling with potty training to keep an open mind and give ‘non-mainstream’ methods like PottyPants a chance.”
One way or another, that tiny newborn in your arms will be out of diapers before you know it. Instead of leaving a legacy of trash off-gassing in the landfill, why not try cloth diapers or go diaper-free, choices that are gentler for the planet and better for your baby.