Reasons To Choose Cloth Diapers

I have lots of pregnant friends right now who are asking me about my experience cloth diapering 3 children (two of whom are currently still in diapers). I'm so happy to see cloth diapers becoming more and more popular and even happier to see the great changes made to cloth diapers since I started using them on my oldest nearly 14 years ago!
Cloth diapering is the obvious choice for my children for many reasons. Some reasons to consider cloth diapering are:

• Less of an environmental impact than disposables. The average child goes through between 6000-7000 diapers. That's a lot of garbage if using disposables. Only 30% of disposable diapers are actually biodegradable and what's worse is that a heavy majority of disosable diaper users don't bother to flush fecal matter so that gets sent to our landfills too. Many people don't know that you aren't actually allowed to throw human waste into the garbage because the viruses that can be found in fecal matter can make it's way into our water system. And that's just nasty! Also less energy is required to make cloth diapers. Choose a diaper made from a renewable resource and you're being ultra friendly to our planet!
• Cloth diapers are healthier for your baby! Male infertility has been linked to disposable diapers because it's believed that the gel warms up a boy's testicles and can stop normal growth. Also, consider the chemicals that are used to make disposable diapers: Tribulytin has been found in Pampers Baby Dry (Greenpeace, May 2000) which harms the immune system, is a hormone disrupter and is speculated to cause male infertility. Traces of dioxen which is a known carcinogen has been found in disposable diapers. The gel in disposable diapers is made from Sodium Polyacrylate which is linked to Toxic Shock Syndrome. And yet another health reason to switch to cloth: It's been shown that disposable diapers can cause asthma in children!
• Cloth diapers will save you money! Do the math! If a child goes through an average of 6000-7000 diapers the costs add up! On average, cloth diapers can cost you $500 over 3 years including laundering expenses. Disposables can cost on average $2000. That's already a savings of $1500... just imagine how much you'd save if you went on to have more children! And cloth diapers have an excellent resale value so you could easily get half your money back.
• Children potty learn at a younger age. Because cloth diapers do not hide the feeling of wetness, children tend to use the potty at a much younger age.
• Less diaper rashes and skin irritations. Disposable diapers tend to cause more skin irritations and diaper rashes than cloth diapers due to two reasons: the chemicals are irritating to the skin and because children feel dry parents tend to change their children's diapers less frequently.
• Cloth diapers are just cuter! Cloth diapers have changed so much in the last few years... they now come in adorable prints. No one will argue that cloth diapers beat out disposable diapers in the cuteness factor!