Mama Cloth Series: Part 3 – Dangers of Disposables & Why the Challenge?

This is the fourth post in my Mama Cloth series.  You can read more about this series in the 1st part and 2nd part.

**Remember, these posts are all about menstruation and being comfortable with the topic and your body – if you’re not interested, please skip this post!

Before we tackle today’s subject, I did want to address a couple of comments that I received on my last post about this topic:

Karin says “I’m so glad you are reviewing this! Here’s a question for you: Before you put them in the wash, do you need to do anything with them? Like diapers, you need to swish in toilet, or whatever. Or is it like breast fed poo, where everything is water soluble? I know this is a weird question.. and maybe tmi? But most periods, esp at the beginning… have more in them than just blood, and I was wondering if this was a washing concern? Sorry that I didn’t get the question in during part 2, but better late than never! Maybe it fits in well with the health concerns, anyways. Do you ever have to worry about contaminating or staining whatever else you wash the pads with?”

You can rinse your pads {remember to use cold water} or even soak them. I don’t and don’t really find a need to, but you definitely can! I don’t wash my Mama Cloth with my nice clothes or anything – but I don’t worry at all about throwing them in with either a load of towels or cloth diapers.

Justice says I love hearing your honest review on this! I got a bunch of mama cloth made, now I just need to put snaps on them. I’ll probably buy a few to try out too once I get some money because I have seen a LOT that I like! I just recently tried out a Diva Cup and a Moon Cup, and I gotta say, I LOVE them. I really like that I’m not having to choose between the messiness of a pad, or the potentially toxicness of a tampon. Can’t wait to see your health concerns blog! I’ve noticed that some people have their pads lined with fleece on the back, to prevent the shifting, these must not have that. That is one of my biggest concerns….I am so scared of leaks because of shifting! Like Junior High School Girl scared of leaks. LOL

After I posted my last blog post and mentioned that some of my snaps had come undone, causing shifting – It’s a Girl Thing Period did let me know, as well as their Facebook fans, that they have excellent customer service and if you have a problem with any snaps they want to know about it – so this isn’t a recurring thing for their pads. They also let me know that the bunching does occur because I’m using my dryer. I tried laying them out to dry and voila!  Bunching no more!
None of my Mama Cloth have fleece backing, so I’m not sure on that, but I don’t really get any shifting unless the snap comes undone.

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Health Concerns of Disposable Products:

So, how many of you read about The Tale of the Moldy Tampon?  It’ll get your attention, I’m sure.  Other health concerns that can rise from using disposable sanitary products include:

• Toxic Shock Syndrome {TSS} – You can read more about that here.
• Over-drying and lack of breath-ability in the area can cause yeast infections.
• Unknown risks of exposure to dioxins and other chemicals used in processing bleached paper products.

And, of course, we can’t leave out the environmental effects of using disposable sanitary products.  Just as using cloth diapers makes a large impact, so does using re-usable cloth pads.

• Approximately 20 billion pads, tampons and applicators are sent to North American landfills annually.
• On an individual level, each of the approximately 73 million menstruating people in North America will throw away 125 to 150kg or approximately 16,800 disposable pads or tampons in their lifetime.

In my next post in the Mama Cloth series, we’ll be discussing Price Differences in Re-Usable Mama Cloth vs. Disposable Options. We’ll also be talking about other re-usable menustruation product options!