The Dangers of Cloth Diapering

Cloth diapering was my first step into the world of GREEN. I am going to come out and warn you that
cloth diapering is the green gate way “drug”. I came across cloth diapering when I was pregnant with my
first baby. I’m the type of person that read a snippet on cloth and thought it completely made sense and
was something I wanted to do. I’ll be honest and say I was not the most earth conscience person on the
planet. I didn’t know, or really care =/, about being green. BUT cloth diapering made sense…I was on a
budget and needed to save money where I could.

So, we started cloth diapering. Since then we’ve adopted many more green concepts into our home.
After cloth diapers, we quickly adopted cloth wipes into our diapering routines. Made more sense right?
If I’m washing my diapers, I don’t want to be picking out dirty wipes. We quickly found we love how
versatile they are. They’re great to have on hand for runny noses, dirty hands, and cleaning up messes.
Soon after cloth diapering we needed to find more ways to save money, and turns out when we want to
save money our options are usually greener. We started making our own laundry detergent. This saves
us a ton of money, and cuts down on our plastic waste! No detergent bottles to throw away! Soon after
making our own detergent, we found recipes for deodorant! Much healthier for our bodies and also cuts
down on plastic!

It wasn’t long after my first baby and liking all the cloth diaper pages and blogs, that I discovered mama
cloth. Maybe I really have an open mind but it was a no brainer for me there too. I sewed up my own
stash of mama cloth and have never thought about going back! So much more comfortable and better
for my body!

Once we started researching chemicals in detergents and deodorants, we quickly realized we needed to
reevaluate the food we are putting into our body. We are definitely not perfect and we’re starting slow,
but week by week we’re trying harder to cut out processed foods and put more raw, fresh produce into
our bodies.

We’re now looking into possibly switching into family cloth. Just saying that sentence makes me laugh.
3 years ago, there is no way I would have ever even considered something so green.

Smartiparents, you have been warned: Side effects of becoming a cloth diaper addict may include
considering and/or adopting green lifestyle changes.


Contributed by: Alex