Enviro Conscious Moms Using Cloth Diapers: Better for Baby, Less Expensive Advocates Say. The Halifax Chronicle Herald, Monday July 2, 2007   They’re not your mother’s cloth diapers.  Gone are the days of complicated folds, sharp pins and smelly diaper pails.  Instead the new high tech world of cloth is bringing absorbent materials, convenient snaps and high tech fabrics like bamboo or hemp.  The new products are not only bringing style and substance to the age old art of diapering, they’re bringing in a whole new generation of converts.   “I wash my sheets, I wash my dishes, it just kind of makes sense to wash my diapers too,” says Jennifer Melville King, Cow Bay mother of two young boys.    “I don’t think a lot of people realize there is a difference in the cloth diapers that we’re using today versus the ones our mothers and grandmothers used,” she says.  “The first people to discourage me were people of my parent’s generation.”   Melville King got started in cloth diapers the same way many parents do.   “I had a friend who was using them.”   April MacKinnon says it’s very much a grassroots movement.  “It’s happening a bit out of the limelight.”   A mother of two, MacKinnon began cloth diapering when her two-year-old was born.  She became such a fan she opened Dartmouth-based Nurtured Products for Parenting, an online cloth diaper boutique.   “Often families who use cloth do become quite passionate about it.  It’s not unusual to find groups of moms using cloth diapers that sit around and have a cup of tea and chat diapers for a couple of hours.  You would never find that among moms who use disposable diapers.”   MacKinnon says her clientele is 95% local and says much of that has come through word of mouth.  She says moms are curious when they see her or her clients changing their babies in public or at various baby groups.   “A lot of people still envision folding large squares of cloth into something that resembles a diaper and then pinning it and using plastic pants the same way it was done in the 1970s and certainly it’s a far cry from what’s available today.  The cloth diapers available today are as easy if not easier to put on than disposable diapers.”   The products are becoming more accessible too.  Three years ago, when Port Williams mother Angela Johnston started searching out cloth diapers for her son, she had trouble finding them.   “It just didn’t seem like there were cloth diapers anywhere and I couldn’t find anyone who was using them.  It was really frustrating.”   She too began her own business, The Valley Cloth Diaper Company.  She says now there are three Nova Scotia cloth diaper companies and interest is only getting stronger.   “My business grows every month exponentially,” says Johnston.   Public interest in the environment is helping to fuel that growth but it’s not just environmentalists choosing to use the cloth diapers.  Instead parents are coming to the decision for a variety of reasons.   Katherine Hutka of Lower Sackville says she had thought about cloth diapers but didn’t start using them until her son developed a yeast infection.  Her pharmacist says cloth diapers might help clear it up.   “So we switched… we used cream for the first few days but it cleared right up which is funny because he’s had it like a week and a half.”   Cloth diaper advocates says the breathable material is much better for baby’s sensitive skin and worry about the risks of the gel like chemicals found in disposable diapers.   Other parents say the real attraction is money.   “My husband and I are both accountants so, obviously, we recognize the benefits of using cloth,” says Melville King.  Buying two or three dozen $12 to $20 diapers means the cost are much higher upfront but, Melville King says, “for our family, with two kids, by the end I figure I’ll probably save a few thousand dollars.”   Statistics Canada says the average Halifax household using disposable diapers spends nearly six hundred dollars a year.  Still the idea of having to wash a pail of poopy diapers can be daunting for some.  Amy Kohli, a Kingston mother expecting her second child, says it really isn’t any more difficult.   “It’s so easy.  I don’t think it’s any work.”   Like many cloth diapering moms, she’s quick to encourage other parents to try it.   “Give it a chance.  Really you dish out some money to get them but if it doesn’t work for you can sell them.  People are always looking for cloth diapers; I know I’ve bought some used.”   “Its like making a commitment to exercise everyday or eat better,” says April MacKinnon.  “It’s just a little bit of a lifestyle adjustment… you take it to the washer rather than the curb.”   The movement towards cloth diapers is one that’s growing quietly in the changing rooms of coffee parties and baby groups but it’s one that’s only going to get bigger says Angela Johnston.   “The people who are really going to use cloth diapers are the kids starting university right now.”   Johnston admits moms her own age can still be skeptical but says when she speaks to high school students there doesn’t even seem to be a question.   “They have been taught their entire lives that the planet just can’t handle what we’re doing to it.  For them, cloth diapers make perfect sense.”   “Right now, we’re looking at about 95% of North America using disposable diapers.  The planet can’t handle that, it’s got to change.”     Cloth Diaper Facts Source:  Environment Canada -In the first two years, the average baby will require between five thousand and seven thousand diaper changes. -Disposable diapers in landfills can prevent water from soaking to the ground. -Washing a load of diapers once or twice a week is roughly equivalent to flushing a toilet five times a day for a week. -Cloth diapers encourage babies to potty train faster than disposables, because with disposable diapers, the babies seldom feel any wetness or discomfort. -More than four million disposable diapers are discarded in Canada per day.