Before the birth of our first child, my husband and I decided to use cloth diapers. Not only would cloth diapers create no landfill waste, but they had no chemicals or fragrances in them – a healthy choice for a healthy baby! Although I wasn’t keen on the idea of having even more laundry to keep up with, I thought it was worth the effort. However, fate had a different plan.
After a 44 hour labor followed by a c-section, my body felt wrecked. (Unlike many, this surgery was medically necessary, but that is a story for another blog!) For more than six weeks, I was unable to carry my new baby girl while walking. In my disabled state, the high maintenance of cloth diapers was simply no longer an option. So, for the first few weeks, we continued to outfit our sweet bundle in whatever disposable diapers they had given us in the hospital. But I knew that I absolutely didn’t want her to be in the “conventional” diapers like Pampers, Loves or Huggies for the long-term.
What We Noticed
Our brand new baby girl immediately had problems with diaper rash. Constant problems. Her poor bottom would have tender red spots that sometimes merged into a large solid “beet-red” area. It hurt her to be wiped. She got to the point where she would squirm when I tried to put a new diaper on her. After a month of this, I decided there had to be another, better way.
What The Experts Claim Causes Diaper Rash
A quick internet search will tell you that the causes of diaper rash are letting your child sit for too long in a diaper full of urine or feces (poop), the rubbing or chaffing from the diaper, or something like a bacterial infection or yeast infection. “Medical” sites even admit to there being such a thing as “allergic reactions” or allergic dermatitis to certain types of diapers. Their solution to this allergy is to switch brands – but never once do they suggest the cause could be in the ingredients of these diapers!
I had more questions than answers. I didn’t let our baby “lounge” in dirty diapers. She was kept clean and dry, was bathed regularly with organic unscented castile soap, was treated with homeopathic remedies to specifically address the diaper rash (with minimal improvements), and she was under comprehensive homeopathic treatment where, in addition to clearing her for all drugs she and I were given during labor and delivery/surgery, she was being treated for her tendency of constipation and her inherited “predisposition to cancer”.
So why was she still having a diaper rash problem? The first thing to check was the thing that was coming directly in contact with her rump – the diaper! I knew it wasn’t the wipe – I was using a cotton pad, water and castile soap… If there WERE allergens or irritants in the diapers, I didn’t want any part of that touching my baby’s precious skin. I wanted a better solution – and it had to be disposable!
Ingredients Cause Skin Eruptions
After more research I learned that diapers are full of petroleum-based products. Petroleum is the “rock oil” they drill out of the ground and use to make gasoline, diesel, propane, plastics, pharmaceutical drugs and many other things.
Petroleum is one of the many substances that homeopaths from more than 100 years ago did a “proving” (or test) on to determine what symptoms it caused. From our study of the homeopathic literature, homeopaths know that Petroleum is notorious for causing digestive disturbances, sea sickness, loss of hair and … skin rashes & skin irritations, among it’s many other symptoms.
Suppression of Skin Eruptions = Big Consequences
And here’s the scary part: homeopaths noticed over 200 years ago that suppression of “skin eruptions”, rashes or itches can lead to the appearance of serious, latent chronic diseases. Diseases like chronic diarrhea[1], asthma[2], madness or mania[3] and seizures/convulsions/epilepsy[4].
Suppression means to “turn off” the symptoms rather than to cure them. Common suppressive treatments include topical creams containing petroleum by-products, zinc oxide and cortisone or other steroids, etc. They come in prescription or over the counter forms. As well, taking antibiotics, anti-inflammatories (NSAIDS) or using oral steroids are highly suppressive – and all are commonly used substances!
Let’s take a moment and look at what Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, the brilliant doctor who founded homeopathy as a complete system of medicine, said in his revolutionary treatise on homeopathy, “The Organon of Medicine,” 6th Ed. In Aphorism 202 he discusses the following law of health that is relevant to this topic: “If the physician of the old school (allopathic medicine) destroys the local symptom by some external means, (ointments, etc.) thinking thereby to heal the entire disease, nature compensates for this by awakening the internal malady and the other symptoms that have lain dormant next to the local disease.”
What does this mean? That more than two centuries ago, homeopathic doctors noticed that, for example, suppressing skin symptoms would drive the disease deeper into the organism and bring out other, more latent conditions, i.e. diarrhea, seizures, asthma, mania etc. Our homeopathic literature is full of such cases.
Another Harmful Ingredient
Digging further, I learned that the fabric on diapers was bleached with dioxins to make it a nice, clean “white” color. Dioxin, among it’s other uses, was the primary toxic component in the extremely harmful defoliant “Agent Orange” used extensively in during the Vietnam war. It can cause severe reproductive & developmental problems, immune system damage & it can interfere with our regulatory hormones. It has also been implicated in causing cancer[5]. Hardly worth it to have white colored diapers, right?
Artificial Fragrances
There are other chemicals in conventional diapers that are questionable, too. But the only other point I will make here is that most conventional diapers contain artificial fragrances – another possible source of allergic dermatitis. And besides, babies smell good enough on their own! Babies have very little natural immune system until around age 6 months. Why burden them with a host of toxic chemicals and fragrances from day one?
A Disposable Diaper Solution
I did manage to find a happy solution. There are diapers out there that are “dioxin free”, and are free from fragrances and other irritating chemicals. The downside is, some of these diapers may not be quite as effective at containing large quantities of liquid waste and they are more expensive. But in my opinion, after 5 children, their benefits FAR outweigh their shortcomings.
Examples of Low-Impact Diaper Brands
- Seventh Generation Diapers
- Huggies Pure and Natural
- Natural Babycare Eco Diapers (NATY)
- EarthsBest Tendercare Diapers
- Honest Diapers (my absolute favorite brand as far as performance goes)
- Bamboo Nature Diapers
- 365 Brand (from Whole Foods Market)
- and many, many others
Do an internet search for “natural diapers” to find more choices. Remember, you may have to experiment with different brands before you find the right one for your child.
How to Save Money Buying Natural Diapers
- Buy them online.
- Buy them by the case.
- Look for coupons, free shipping offers and specials from the places you order.
- Sign up for their e-newsletters. They announce discounts to people on their mailing lists.
- One of the benefits of ordering from some places online is they may not charge sales tax to ship to your area, and that is a savings right there!
Conclusion
These tips can help you prevent as much as 75% of diaper rash occurrences. In a later post, I’ll talk about how you can treat diaper rash homeopathically when it does occur, as well as other considerations for when it’s your child’s state of health causing the “diaper rashes” and not your diapers.
Learn More On Harmful Chemicals In Diapers
The Harmful Chemicals in Disposable Diapers
Chemicals in Disposable Diapers
[1] See homeopathic remedies Petroleum, “Concordant Materia Media, Millennium Edition”, by Frans Vermeulen, Emryss Publishers, 2000
[2] See homeopathic remedies Sulphur, “Concordant Materia Media, Millennium Edition”, by Frans Vermeulen, Emryss Publishers, 2000
[3] See homeopathic remedies Sulphur, “Concordant Materia Media, Millennium Edition”, by Frans Vermeulen, Emryss Publishers, 2000
[4] See homeopathic remedies Sulphur, Zinc, Antimonium tartaricum, etc, “Desktop Guide to Keynotes and Confirmation Symptoms” by Roger Morrison, MD and “Lectures on Homeopathic Materia Medica” by James Tyler Kent, MD
[5] Greenpeace report on Dioxin by Joe Thornton 1997
