Cloth Diapering Demystified

It was an ordinary afternoon at the basketball field. I was on the bleachers watching my oldest (again) play and was simultaneously wrestling my almost two-year-old (he arches his back and slams his head into my chest and I snuggle him to keep him from falling down a flight of bleacher stairs). I checked his diaper and proceeded to change him in a secluded spot, nothing unusual so far - except that when I turned my head to retrieve his new diaper, I noticed several moms looking over my shoulder.

I looked up from my spot on the floor and said, "Hi," in an obviously-confused manner.

"What are you doing?" one of the ladies said.

"Changing Jack's diaper," I replied, trying not to "crack wise" as my grandmother would have said.

"What is that?" another lady said, pointing to Jack's diaper.

"A diaper," I said, wondering if I had to start speaking slowly and loudly too. And then it dawned on me why they were looking at me so strangely.

"Oh," I said. "It's a cloth diaper."

"Really?" one of the mom's asked. "You do that?"

"Yeah," I said. "I have for years."

"Gross," was one mother's reply. "I could never do that," another said. "I wish I could," said another, "but it's just too much."

Their reactions shouldn't have surprised me, but they did a little. I mean, I understand thinking that cloth diapers can be a hassle, but to not even recognize one when they saw it?

After the initial shock wore off, I proceeded to give the other mothers a small class - what I like to call Cloth Diapers 101.

The first question is always, "Why do I use cloth diapers?"

Why wouldn't I?

Let's first put aside the fact that cloth diapers are really soft and it's the only thing I can imagine putting next to my baby's even softer skin. Let's look at a disposable diaper. A disposable diaper contains traces of dioxin - a very toxic chemical bi-product of the paper-bleaching process. It is a carcinogenic chemical and is classified by the EPA as being the most toxic of all the cancer-linked chemicals. It is banned in most countries.

Disposables also contain Tributyl-tin (TBT) - a known toxic pollutant said to cause hormonal problems in humans and animals.