Mom needs her diaper changed twice per week. Although it gets a bit dirty, she is not incontinent, but she fears she will be – she fears she will pee her pants, or poo. So that she is not in perpetual fear, she wears a diaper.

(Those two half-sentence phrases did not become real without two long stories, summarized thus: To get her to trust that diapers would keep her dry, I put one on, poured a bucket of water into it, stretched, squatted and sat, and took it off and threw it at my friend, who caught it, still dry. Still she wouldn’t wear a diaper, because, for one thing, she insisted “it falls down my pant leg” until I realized she was using it as a big pad, not unfolding it to wear it.)

Some types of diaper are compost-able (in the City’s composting facility, not in my backyard). (See Compost Diapers?)

Still, there is ecological and economic cost to the production and disposal or industrialized composting of diapers. I don’t want the convenience of disposable diapers to beget living as if we have a disposable planet. Cloth diapers could work for adults who aren’t really incontinent, but where absorbence is required, they are not ideal.

Eureka! Wear Both: Underwear + Diaper. I now have Mom wearing her underwear as well as her diaper. I can wash her underwear, and thus prolong the life of the diaper by two weeks, it seems. The diaper does fall apart eventually, with the white absorbent material falling on the floor.

Next step: since Mom is still not incontinent, and cloth diapers don’t fall apart, I’ll try underwear underneath a cloth diaper. Where can I get a cloth diaper for adults? What is a cloth diaper?

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Categories: Caregiving
Tags » Caregiving | diapers | ecological | hygiene | Momma

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