Disposable Diapers

Disposable Diapers



Cloth Diapers




When my eldest daughter was born in 1979, one could only get disposable diapers from a small shop in an exclusive neighbourhood in Damansara Heights where foreigners lived. Nowadays, they are easily available even in remote villagers.

When my children were babies, I used disposable diapers only when travelling. We stopped using diapers in the day when they are toilet trained at about 12 to 15 months. When not travelling, I used cloth diapers.The baby slept on a cloth sheet placed on top of a plastic sheet. I had to change the diapers several times throughout the day and night and then had to wash a lot of diapers.

Nowadays, parents do not used cloth diapers at all. The babies use disposable diapers till they could talk. Sometimes, up to 3 years old. I personally feel that once they could communicate, toddlers should be toilet trained.

Which is better,"cloth or disposable"? While using disposables means that lots of plastic and human waste ends up in landfills, cloth diapers use a lot of energy in washing and drying them, whether you do so at home or through a service.

Which method you choose will depend on your personal preference. Some baby nurseries and day care centres prefer children to be in disposable diapers, making that the preferred method for working parents. Lots of parents employ both, switching between cloth and disposables depending on work and travel schedules.

Cloth Diapers: Cloth diapers, laundered at home and line-dried, are the cheapest and greenest way to go. There are greater up-front costs than your other diapering options because you have to invest in diapers and diaper covers, but these investments pay off over time, especially if you plan to have more than one baby.

In the West, there are diapers made of organic cotton, which are more expensive than conventional cotton diapers, but help reduce pesticide use. As organic cotton products are too steep for the budget, used diapers are used as a way to avoid contributing to pesticide-intensive cotton production. Used diapers are not sold in Malaysia.

Alternative Disposable Diapers: For the environmentally concerned parent who prefers disposables, they should look out for brands that use less water, responsibly harvested wood pulp and recycled or compostable or biodegradeable plastics;

Diapering is arguably the most important decision parents could make for the environment and their young children, who are usually in diapers around the clock for at least up to two years.

The average baby goes through 5,000 diapers before being toilet trained. Because 95 percent of these diaper changes are disposable diapers, most of them end up in landfills.

Diapers made up 3.4 million tons of waste, or 2.1 percent of U.S. garbage, in landfills in 1998 -- the last year this information was collected, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Diapers in landfills in underdeveloped countries are especially problematic because they often aren't properly disposed, and excrement leaks into the local water supply.

And contrary to popular belief, no diaper -- not even biodegradable ones -- can break down in an airtight landfill.

As if that weren't enough to keep parents awake at night, cloth diaper services and some researchers bombard the public with news articles on the harmful chemicals in disposable diapers. While it is true that the waste water from washing cloth diapers is benign compared with the sludge of dioxins, solvents and heavy metals in waste water from manufacturing disposable diapers, there is no evidence that sufficient traces of the chemicals remain on the diapers to harm babies. As for the primary feature that gives disposable diapers their appeal -- their ability to absorb a large volume of liquid -- no studies indicate that sodium polyacrylate, the gel-like absorbent substance used in disposables, harms babies wearing the diapers.

The one study that does give cloth diapers a leg up in health benefits for baby boys appeared in the October 2000 issue of the Disease in Childhood medical journal. German researchers found that the scrotal skin temperatures of baby boys were significantly higher when they wore disposable diapers than when they wore cloth. While the scientists called for more research, their article suggested that prolonged use of disposable diapers as infants was an "important factor" contributing to the decline of sperm production among adult males. Proctor & Gamble conducted its own study and also found that scrotal skin temperatures increased for boys in disposable diapers.

Thus for new parents, it may be difficult to decide whether to contribute less to the landfills or to opt for convenience.