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The first 2 plus years of a child's life are lived in diapers. Raising a baby has many wonderful rewards and some challenges. As parents we sometimes are just concerned with finding convenient ways to be a great parent.

One thing that we don't always consider is the impact that the diapers we choose for our baby have on the health and comfort of our baby, the positive impact that we can choose to have on the environment, and the substantial savings available through the use of child diapers made from cloth.

Here are 7 Reasons to Choose Cloth Diapers over Disposable Diapers

1. Improved health for your baby. Take a look at what makes up today's disposable diapers. They are made with a chemical that makes the diaper very absorbent - but this chemical (sodium polyacrylate) has been linked to toxic shock syndrome. And that's not the only dangerous chemical. You will also find in disposable diapers traces of Dioxin (this is a carcinogen) and it can cause genetic damage, immune system suppression and even disease of the liver.

2. Less chance of diaper rash. When your baby wears disposable diapers parents can be fooled into thinking that their baby is dry since the diapers are so absorbent. This often means that the baby is changed less than babies that are using cloth-type diapers. We use cloth diapers and find that they start to feel damp after approximately 4 hours. So the bottom line is that with cloth diapers your baby will be changed more often which means less chance of diaper rash. The material used in disposables is not very breathable versus cloth diapers which are made with breathable cotton. The hotter the baby's covered area the easier it is for bacteria growth - which results in diaper rash.

3. Baby's comfort. Cloth-style diapers are made from layers of breathable, soft-to-the-touch cotton. Plainly stated cotton just feels better next to baby's skin. Cotton is breathable which means that it is cooler next to baby's tender skin. Especially on hot, humid days cotton clothe diapers are much cooler than the disposable alternative.

4. Less expensive. Studies have shown that during a baby's diaper-wearing years they will wear about 7500 diapers. If you choose to use cloth diapers over disposables the savings to your household will be in the magnitude of between one and two thousand dollars. And that's when you include the costs of purchasing disposables versus the cost of buying and laundering the cloth baby diapers at home. Saving money is important to our family. Our experience with our first child, in his first year we saved over $800 by using cloth diapers. Using cloth makes sense on a number of different levels - but if you only use cloth because you want to save money - you will save money.

5. Make our world better - Each year about a million tons of wood and 75 thousand tons of plastic go into the making of disposable diapers. Because cloth diapers are designed for a long life they can be used over and over for your first child, and over and over again for your second and third baby and so on. We`ve all learned how important it is to reuse whatever we can. A good cloth diaper can be washed a hundred or more times, and the laundering does use energy - but the cost is very small when you compared to the negative effects of using disposables. Studies tell us that we can expect a disposable to take four to five hundred years to be fully decomposed.

6. No fuss changing. Cloth diapers are built with snap closures (no more pins). They are adjustable so that they provide a great fit for your baby. Many of the cloth diapers are made with a built in outer liner making it easy for anyone to change a baby - even a grandpa.

7. Built in outer cover. That means just change the diaper - don`t worry about having to pull an outer cover over top of the diapers. It makes changing baby a breeze.

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