DD's Nappy EXPLODED!

[Toothache]

I put dd (10mths) in the paddling pool on Wednesday. I left her Nappy and vest on as I always did with ds. After about half an hour I lifted her out to dry and dress her and she look pregnant! She had this massive bulge under her vest!

When I stripped her off all the clear crystaline gel stuff from inside the nappy had exploded in her vest!!!!! Couldn't believe how much there was! It's not dangerous is it????

The chemical which makes disposable nappies so efficient is called sodium polyacrylate. This is a super-absorbent powder which, when it becomes wet, swells into a gel. You can sometimes see clear crystals of sodium polyacrylate on your baby's bottom when you change a nappy. There are many doubts over the safety of sodium polyacrylate: not least amongst which is its creation of an illusion of dryness which could encourage the nappy (and its contents) to be left in place for longer than advisable, in conditions which are bacterially ideal for the growth of infection.

Other health concerns around disposable nappies include the fact that the wood pulp used in them is bleached using dioxins which are highly toxic chemicals known to cause liver damage, immune system suppression and genetic damage in animal studies.

That's rubbish, Starlover. There are many regulations for these chemicals, and because the finished product may not be regulated in all the countries in which they are marketed, does not mean that they do not fall under regulations. The ultimate regulation is that they have to be proven to be safe. In the context of the rest of human activity, disposables nappies are up there in the safety stakes.

Oh Gawd...

well, i have read the same information on MANY sites...

now you show me proof that the chemicals ARE regulated

my last 2 posts were copied and pasted... one from a government site.

Feck that for a laugh, Starlover. I'm not doing that research for you, so you can turn round and not believe it!

yeah because you know you'll only come up with the same as I have just posted.

as much as you WANT to prove everyone wrong on chemicals in ecover/cloth nappies... you just can't.

and fwiw, although i seem like a die-hard eco-warrier cloth nappy using weirdo (!), I actually don't care THAT much. Doesn't really bother me what nappies or washing powder people use.
But don't go around saying I am wrong, when I am blatantly not.

I thought it was recently stated that both cloth and disposable had equal effects on environment?

miranda - it would seem, from readin links others have put on here and on other sites, that that survey was very flawed. Common sense suggests it has to be anyway, surely. Regardless of whether people use cloth nappies or not, surely everyone must, deep down, think that cloth has to be better environmentally?

BTW, I didn't use cloth with DD at all when small, although we did move over to reusable pull ups for bed time last year. That was primarily a financial decision at the time though.

(Was very ignorant of cloth nappies if I am honest. Didn't know what I know now at all. If and when we do have #2 I will look into it more though.)

hulababy
where do you get the reusable pull ups please? Not seen them before and they would be handy for ds.
Thanks

miranda.. yeah it was.. but as hiula says, the results were VERY flawed. Good article about it in the times here

re-usable training pants are here

I use Motherease Bedwetters (or did - currenty tryin night time training!!!). I got them from www.thenappylady.co.uk (or .com???) Think they are about £15 a pair, I had 3 but you could get away with 2. Over a year (or few months) they really do save.

Just a quick, non-debate, point about the amount of liquid a nappy can hold...

A disposable nappy can hold a lot more water than it can urine. This is because both the polymer in the nappy is a salt and urine is a salt solution. Super-absorbing polymers are more effective at higher pH levels too.

It's not surprising that the non-woven shell of the nappy gives way when it is saturated with water, and not when it is in more "normal" use.

lol How did this thread turn into a fight???? And it wasn't even ME involved! Jeeeso.

Anyway... harmful or not... lessons learned... don't sit your dd/ds in paddling pool for 15mins with a pampers nappy on!

Definitely like this posting name better.

i seem to have a habit lately of turning EVERY thread i am on into a fight!

i am secretly quite proud of this.

so you should be proud of it, starlover, makes for good reading!

(I'm a cloth fan too, btw, let's be outrageosly loud about it, and annoy as many 'polluters' as we can lol)

I used Nature nappies for months but have recently found gel on my baby's bottom which clearly stemmed from the nappy. To my disappointment I realised that the nappies are not gel-free. The gel they contain is considered not considered a carcinogen but an irritant. I am now looking for a gel-free alternative.
According to NappyExpress, a delivery service in London, nappies have become thinner over the last years and more gel-filled. Tushies have been just taken off the market (forever? for a re-design?), so no more gel-free disposables available to my knowledge.

This is the response of the company when I wrote to them:
Thank you for the time to contact us about the superabsorbent gel material used in our nappies.
Superabsorbents are widely employed within the hygiene disposables industry to enhance absorption performance and leakage protection. They have now enjoyed a long, safe history of use spanning some fifteen years, in nappies as well as some feminine care products and adult incontinence nappies.
If we didn't have any superabsorbents the performance of the nappy would be much poorer, the absorbent capacity would be much lower. This would have a serious effect on the dryness of the nappy, hence increasing risk for rash. The superabsorbents we use are absolutely safe and are tested in all aspects of allergy and toxicity for the user.
SAP technology has developed considerably over the years but it has evolved around the same basic chemistry, these being Sodium Polyacrylate salts and cross linking agents.

We can't hide from that fact.

Nature Babycare nappies have a specially designed channel in the absorbent core, which transports the urine away from the baby's bottom. Thanks to the special composition of our nappy, we use up to 50% percent less Sodium Polyacrylate in the nappy compared to other market leading brands.

We hope that helps to answer your question. Thank you again for taking the time to contact us.

Customer Service NATY AB
Nature Babycare
www.naturebabycare.com

Another cloth fan here, mainly because of the disgusting stuff that disposables are made of.

And a pocket nappy or snap-in like an Itti without the absorbent bits in makes the perfect swim nappy.

Lol @ the exploding nappy!

We use cloth because the gel inside the nappies does contain chemicals that i dont want on my babies skin as they can lead to nappy rash and other skin conditions. Also research suggests that when urinated on the chemicals produce heat. Boys testicles are ment to be kept below a certain temp for a reason, disposables heat them which can lead to infertility. Reasearch has also been done into disposables causing female cancer, there is slight eveidence but quite frankly im not taking the risk :). Baby wipes also contain a chemical which can cause serious skin conditions later in life, this is why i use cloth wipes.

At the end of the day its the parents choice what they want to use on their baby. Although i wouldnt recommend exploding nappies to anyone pmsl. We use a bumgenius for a swim nappy, seems to do the trick and hasnt exploded yet!

and my two pennies worth!
sodium polyacrylate was removed from tampons in 1985 after a link with toxic shock syndrome had been shown. The possibility that it could have adverse effects on babies has not been studied.
Sodium polyacrylate has been implicated as a contributing factor of staph infections. It is a skin irritant, because it is able to absorb all of the oils and moisture from the skin, yielding a drying effect. It is no surprise, then, that problems like nappy rash are almost non-existent for babies having cloth diapers. The effects of topical exposure to sodium polyacrylate have only been minimally studied, so we do not yet know what damage it is doing. For the interest of our children, it is wise to err on the side of caution
Of more concern are dioxins, these are a byproduct of chlorine, which is used during the bleaching process. Dioxins accumulate in the body throughout the lifetime of the victim, which makes this a particularly important topic. Dioxin exposure as a child will impede the immune system of the individual forever. It means that they will never be as strong as they should have been. Dioxins are responsible for a range of reproductive and developmental problems, damaging the immune system, along with causing major hormonal imbalances and cancer

this thread is 6 years old

oh er, had not spotted that! I did think most would know by now, should pay more attention rather than just nosing - note for next time.

Six years on it's still relevant - possibly even more so with the disgusting extra dry disposable nappies they've been coming out with.

One does wonder, given that various substances initially are thought to be safe whether, at some stage in the future, that thoughts on safety of chemical content of napies will change as research progresses.

An example of this was around 1972 I remember my dentist let me play with the mercury prior to turning it to a filling, nowadays most dentists don't use mercury and some contries have banned it. Other substances once thought to be safe are many: asbestos, cigarettes (nicotine), creosote... I could go on.

We simply don't know what, if any, the long term effects of 2 1/2 years plus use would be. If I had one in disposables, I'd certainly be introducing the potty and getting trained by the 'old' average age of 1960s babies - before the age of 2. Just in case!