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Comfy Cloth Pads(TM) are now available in bamboo velour and organic cotton. You won't believe how soft!

Diaper Facts

Using cloth diapers could save you as much as $1500 per child! Now that's a lot of money.

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Real Diaper Association Member

Confused about your cloth diaper choices?

...Cloth Planet is here to help!

You'll find helpful information about choosing and using cloth diapers. From prefolds to all-in-one diapers, we have it covered.You'll even find information about cloth diaper accessories and mama things like nursing covers and mama pads.

Blue Cloth Diaper

Why Use Cloth Diapers?

You'll love how cute they are. You need more reason than that? Here are some great reasons to choose cloth diapers for your baby's health, your pocketbook, the environment, and convenience. Oh, and they are cute too! 

Easy to Use - Really

Cloth diapers often bring up the icky thought of swishing old fashioned diapers in the toilet. Not only is this NOT necessary with modern fabrics and washing machines, even if you decide to wash out diapers before putting them in the diaper pail, you can use a convenient diaper sprayer or pail system to do this without a huge mess.

Once you try modern cloth diapers, you'll be hooked. They are as easy to use as disposables. Most fasten with hook and loop tape similar to Velcro or they fasten with snaps. Even the old-fashioned prefolds and flat diapers have come a long way. You can use a snug fitting hook and loop or snap diaper cover to hold the diaper on. Just lay the diaper in the cover and fasten snugly around your baby.

Pocket diapers such as those made by Happy Heiny, Drybees and Little for Now are perfect for the new cloth diaperer. These diapers feature a pocket in the back where you can slip in an absorbent insert. The inside of the diaper is made with a soft wicking fabric so the moisture goes through to the insert and baby feels dry longer. Best of all, messes don't stick to the suedecloth or fleece inner lining, making it easy to shake off the mess into the toilet. Pocket diapers are so innovative they are actually patented.

Below is an example of a Drybees Pocket Diaper.

Drybees Pocket Diaper

Better for Baby

Disposable diapers are actually more likely to cause diaper rashes than properly cleaned cloth diapers. Not only do they tend to be left on the baby longer (leading to ammonia and bacteria buildup) but they are also more likely to cause rashes for a variety of other reasons.

We don't know what effect the chemicals used in disposable diapers have for the long term health of you baby. We do know that even small amounts of dioxin and other chemicals in disposable diapers can cause infertility and a wide variety of health problems - including cancer.

Baby boys may be at increased risk due to the heat build up in disposable diapers. While the link between infertility and disposable diapers has not been proven yet, the October 2000 issue of Archives of Disease in Childhood speculates that the rise in infertility may be partially due to the heat build up in disposable diapers. With temperatures inside a disposable as much as 1.8 degrees higher there is the potential for damage to the baby's genitals. We do know that if a baby with an undescended testicle is not treated before 1 year of age, that they will have a higher future risk of testicular cancer or infertility due to the higher heat inside the body.

Many babies are allergic to the dyes and glues used in disposable diapers. My concern is that if these chemicals are so well absorbed that they can cause a rash this severe, then what is it doing that we can't see? We know that these chemical dyes are linked to liver problems and other long term health problems. 

In their September 2005 issue the American Academy of Pediatrics magazine, not exactly known for being a a promoter of natural health care, published an article about Diaper Dye Dermatitis. You can see some of the rashes these dyes and chemicals can cause in sensitive babies here.

Disposable diapers also come apart - leaving your baby at risk of choking on the parts of the diaper. The absorbent gel (sodium polyacrylate) inside the diapers has been linked to scrotal bleeding in boys, is fatal when inhaled by cats, and can cause choking. Ingestion of as little as 5 grams (hardlmore than a spoonful) of sodium polyacrylate has been knownto cause death in humans and animals. 

The Consumer Product Safety Commission reports that an estimated 8,469 incidents involving diapers occurred in the year 2,000 alone. While the majority of these were limited to allergic reactions and severe diaper rashes, several hundred were attributed to choking, burns and other risks associated with disposable diapers.

Cloth Diapers and the Environment

The Real Diaper Association estimates that 27.4 Billion disposables are used each year in the US alone. Cloth diapers will hold up to 75-200 washes or more. Simple logic alone tells you that recycling diapers makes sense.

The Real Diaper Association also states that cloth is better for the environment for a number of reaons including:

"Disposable diapers generate sixty times more solid waste and use twenty times more raw materials, like crude oil and wood pulp."

"The manufacture and use of disposable diapers amounts to 2.3 times more water wasted than cloth."

"Over 300 pounds of wood, 50 pounds of petroleum feedstocks and 20 pounds of chlorine are used to produce disposable diapers for one baby EACH YEAR."

Click here to read more about the facts of diapering, including links to research studies.

Disposable diapers are not as sanitary as their pure white look would indicate. They are full of chemicals and are not actually sterilized during processing. These diapers are almost never dumped into the toilet (as required by law) before being tossed away. This puts millions of tons of human waste into our landfills, including the dozens of potential viruses and even more bacteria into the landfills where it can leach into groundwater. Disposable diapers take hundreds of years to decompose.