A little catch up...Diapers

When it came to diapering number one I just went with it, at first. The hospital gave me diapers, they were Pampers brand and they seemed great. They were soft and they didn't leak much. They even had a line on them that changed colors indicating they were wet. So I bought those for a couple of months. Then I saw an article on how it takes about 500 years for a typical diaper to decompose. I could not believe it! So I did some research and would you know it they weren't as good as they seemed.

According to http://www.realdiaperassociation.org There are many health risks and environmental concerns of why you shouldn't use disposable diapers. Here are the health reasons:

"Disposable diapers contain traces of Dioxin, an extremely toxic by-product of the paper-bleaching process. It is a carcinogenic chemical, listed by the EPA as the most toxic of all cancer-linked chemicals. It is banned in most countries, but not the U.S.
Disposable diapers contain Tributyl-tin (TBT) - a toxic pollutant known to cause hormonal problems in humans and animals.
Disposable diapers contain sodium polyacrylate, a type of super absorbent polymer (SAP), which becomes a gel-like substance when wet. A similar substance had been used in super-absorbency tampons until the early 1980s when it was revealed that the material increased the risk of toxic shock syndrome by increasing absorbency and improving the environment for the growth of toxin-producing bacteria.
In May 2000, the Archives of Disease in Childhood published research showing that scrotal temperature is increased in boys wearing disposable diapers, and that prolonged use of disposable diapers will blunt or completely abolish the physiological testicular cooling mechanism important for normal spermatogenesis."

I did notice the gel in the Pampers Brand diapers.

Here are some f the environmental reasons

"No one knows how long it takes for a disposable diaper to decompose, but it is estimated to be about 250-500 years, long after your children, grandchildren and great, great, great grandchildren will be gone. Disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills, and represent about 4% of solid waste. In a house with a child in diapers, disposables make up 50% of household waste.5 Disposable diapers generate sixty times more solid waste and use twenty times more raw materials, like crude oil and wood pulp."

After reading this and many more articles I decided to go cloth, gcloth that is, http://www.gdiapers.com/. I love gdiapers, they work so great and take all the guess work out of washing cloth diapers. They come with great instructions and they seem very comfortable. They were a little expensive at first but quickly paid for them selves. I opted for the cloth insert because I thought they look more comfortable and I could reuse them instead of having to continue to buy something. gdiapers.com was was very helpful when I called them with questions. I am bummed that with my second baby they no longer directly sell their products and I had to buy them through a third party. To make things easier for the cleaning process a I bought a toilet sprayer so I don't even have to touch the "yucky" (as number one would say) part. I still use disposables when we are out and at night but I switched to Huggies Pure and Natural as they are more Eco friendly.