As our grandmothers were grateful for the safety pin and designed cloth diapers, most women today praise elastic and self adhesive disposables. Cloth diapers, however, have come a long way through history.
For centuries up through the nineteenth century, the customs for diapering babies did not change much. Mostly mothers and nursemaids used natural materials like grasses bundled up with the baby in a pouch of animal skins, or natural cloths of linen or cotton tied around the baby’s waist with cord or string.
Diapers Made of Cloth
When the Industrial Revolution brought on change to many industries, cloth diapers were included in the developments. Mothers and nursemaids began believing the new research about cleanliness and links to diaper rash. No longer was it acceptable to leave the baby’s clothing for several days at a time. Can you imagine that? Several days with the same dirty diaper—fifteen minutes with a bomb in the drawers is more than enough to send the baby to the changing table in today’s family. Once there, she’ll be pampered with gentile wipes, creams, and a fresh, new diaper. Things have changed over the years, to advance health care first, by changing more frequently, then to save time and avoid the soiled items with the disposable diaper.
Anyway, back to the story. The turn of the 19th century homes had boiling pots of cloth diapers, for sterilization, and a clothesline to dry them. When the safety pin began to show up in every day homes towards the end of the 1800’s, the diaper industry changed and began to standardize specific cuts of cloth just for this use. There were precise folding and pinning techniques used and passed from grandmother to daughter. The first all-cotton diaper was 21 inches by 40 inches, and mass produced in the United States. By this time, market standards had increased absorption layering in the right areas, now often using many sheets of tissue paper. As the World War II took many mothers out of the home and into the factories and workplace, the time to care for all the boiling and drying in addition to other responsibilities was put on a back burner. Out of home diaper services brought fresh diapers to doorsteps in the evenings, and laundered what had been used.
More developments between the war and other influences improved the tissue paper core to the next phase: disposable diapers.
