toxins – Page 2

Similar to my homemade baby food post (Oct. ’10), this is meant to be a simple post of encouragement to anyone considering cloth diapering.

Really, if you’re thinking about cloth diapering for the first time, it’s not the nightmare you might imagine. It’s not the same as when your mom cloth diapered you – or your grandmother cloth diapered your mom. Cloth diapers have come a long way since the days of pins and rubber pants, and the benefits are huge:

#1- Safer and gentler on your baby’s skin. Cloth diapering keeps the absorbent chemicals of disposables away from that cute little tush, which is important since the skin absorbs so much of what it touches. Another perk? Fewer diaper rashes.

#2- Huge cost savings. Though I can’t recall now where I got this statistic, I think I’ve heard that the average disposable-diapered child will cost his parents between $2500-$3500 in diapers over the course of 2-3 years. Cloth diapers are certainly a bigger expense up front, but much less expensive over time, particularly when you consider the multiple child usability factor. We’re about to put baby #4 into our same set of FuzziBunz. You can do the math on that. Under $1,000 vs $10,000? And if budget is an immediate concern, you can always ask for your cloth diapers as gifts from people. We got ours as major Christmas and birthday presents from family, instead of having to buy them ourselves.

#3- Significantly cuts down on environmental waste. Cloth diapering doesn’t just keep the disposable diaper itself out of the waste stream, but consider also the chemicals inside the diapers and the plastic bags often used to contain diaper stink when placing them in the trash or ‘odorless’ diaper pail systems. Don’t buy into the myth about your water and electric bills skyrocketing if you choose to cloth diaper. I think our water bill went up about $5 a month, maybe? And the electric bill, I’m not sure, but it couldn’t have been much because: a) I didn’t notice and b) we line dry our dipes most of the time.

As with homemade baby food, cloth diapering is so worth the little bit of extra effort – worth it for your baby, for you, and for the planet. If you want to cloth diaper, but just need that little bit of friendly encouragement… “You can do it!” 🙂

We don’t have TV in our house – life is just simpler in so many ways without one. But, when my mother-in-law stayed with us briefly a couple years ago due to some medical issues, she got us hooked on NCIS. My hubby and I still watch the new episodes each week – we just watch them the next day online.

This week’s victim, as it turns out, was slowly poisoned over the course of two weeks by a rival chemist. How? The dirty work was done by pumping a colorless, odorless, and highly toxic chemical directly into the water line leading to her shower. The victim’s daily cleansing routine, instead of helping maintain her health, was slowly killing her.

The plausibility of this episode is rooted in the fact that our skin absorbs a significant amount of what we put on it. And while it may seem a bit extreme to draw an analogy to this NCIS episode, because of what I’ve learned over the last 5+ years, the storyline did trigger the thought in my mind: “And how many people may actually be doing the same thing to themselves over the course of decades because of the personal care products they choose?”

In its “Healthy Home Tips for Parents,” the Environmental Working Group (EWG) actually lists “choose better body care products” as tip #1. In a day and age where we cannot control so many of the toxic exposures we experience, it is worth considering the areas in which we can make safer, healthier choices – for our bodies and the planet.

– For the EWG “Healthy Home” tips document, click here.
– For more resources on why you may want to consider daily toxic exposures through your skin, see Part 1 of this free report.

Cloth Diapers

Poisoned