The New Father. Armin A. Brott
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A Note on Diapers
It seems as though you can hardly do anything anymore without having to make choices—do you want the Tastes Great kind of beer or the Less Filling kind? Do you want toothpaste with tartar control or with peroxide and baking soda? Fortunately, most of the choices we make are pretty easy. But some come with their very own built-in political controversy: Death penalty or life in prison? Paper or plastic? Well, now that you’re a parent, you can add “Disposable diapers or cloth?” to your list. Let’s take a quick look at the pros and cons of each kind:
• Disposables. Americans throw away something like eighteen billion disposable diapers a year, enough to constitute more than 1 percent of the nation’s landfills. They’re made of plastic and will stay in their present form for about five hundred years. “Biodegradable” disposables are available in some places, but since these diapers are buried under tons of other garbage, they’re deprived of the oxygen and sun they need to decompose. As a result, they may take just as long to break down.
On the other hand, disposables are a lot more convenient. If you’re traveling, you can just toss the dirty ones away instead of having to carry them around with you. And even if you’re not traveling, they’re very easy to use, which is probably why about 90 percent of parents (and about 100 percent of hospitals) use disposables.
Disposable diapers for newborns are inexpensive. However, as your baby and her diapers get bigger, the number per package goes down while the cost per package stays about the same. Since you’ll be going through about a dozen diapers a day, this option can get pretty pricey. But if you keep your eyes out for coupons or shop at warehouse stores, you can save a lot. In addition, places like Toys я Us, Walgreens, and other drugstore chains have generic or house brands that are a lot cheaper and usually just as good.
On the downside, disposables are so effective in absorbing moisture that kids who wear them stay comfortable longer and tend to be potty-trained later. (The average child who wears disposables is in them for 36–40 months, compared to 24–30 months for kids in cloth diapers.) Disposable-wearing kids are also more likely to get diaper rash because even though the moisture gets absorbed, the bacteria and ammonia that cause the rash stay inside.
• Cloth. These diapers are a lot easier on babies’ brand-new, sensitive skin—no harsh chemicals or plastics. One of the traditional arguments against cloth diapers is that they aren’t as convenient as disposables, and to some extent that’s still true. You’ll go through more cloth diapers in a day than you would with disposables, plus, if you’re out of the house you’ll have to schlep dirty ones with you until you get home, and if you run out, you’ll have a tougher time finding extras. Still, there have been some important changes in the past few years. Today, for example, cloth diapers come in all sorts of styles: hourglass shaped, ones with elastic around the legs for better seal, Velcro closures instead of pins, special liners to make cleanup easier, and more.
At the same time, although they’re all natural, they still have a carbon footprint. Cloth diapers are made of cotton, which is taxing on farmland. And in order to sterilize cloth diapers properly, diaper services wash them seven times in near-boiling water, consuming huge amounts of power, water, and detergents. The diapers are then delivered all over town in trucks that fill the air with toxic pollutants. The pro-disposable lobby says that using diaper services consumes more fuel and causes as much air pollution as disposable diapers do. Seems like a bit of a stretch to me.
If you’re thinking about going cloth, use a diaper service. Over the long term, it may be more expensive than buying your own diapers and washing them yourself, but most new parents I’ve spoken with would rather spend their free time napping or hanging out together than doing laundry. Costs vary greatly around the country. If you sign up with a diaper service, you’ll start with about eighty diapers per week. If you’re buying your own, start with around forty.
Even if you decide against using cloth diapers for the baby, buy a dozen anyway—they’re great for drying baby bottoms on changing tables and for draping over your shoulder to protect your clothes when your baby spits up.
• Other Options. Overall it’s a tough choice, and it’s all yours. But I suggest that you do a combination of the two: use cloth diapers during the day and when you’re at home, disposables at night and whenever you go out. Alternatively, if you’re not worried about spending a little extra money, there are a few eco-friendly options out there, including those that use cotton, cornstarch, and/or wood pulp to absorb liquid instead of gels, and some that are compostable or flushable (or have disposable inserts that are). All are widely available online or in brick-and-mortar stores.
What’s Really Going On Inside Those Diapers?
• Meconium. That’s the word for those greenish black, sticky, tarry bowel movements that may have you worrying that there’s something wrong with your baby’s intestines. By about the fourth day of age, as your baby starts breast- or bottle-feeding, the meconium will be replaced with a much more pleasant-looking concoction. Breastfed babies usually fill their diapers with seedy, Dijon mustard–colored stool that doesn’t smell all that bad. Formula-fed babies produce a more pasty substance that can smell like milk gone sour. Occasional changes in color and consistency are normal for both.
• Early puberty? It’s not uncommon for boys’ and girls’ genitals and nipples to be swollen for the first few days after birth. There may even be a few drops of milk. Girls sometimes also have a whitish discharge and even some tiny streaks of blood from the vagina. Again, nothing to worry about. This has to do with the high levels of hormones the baby got from your partner, and all these symptoms will clear up within a week or two after delivery.
• The umbilical cord stump. Your baby’s umbilical cord stump will drop off anywhere from one to three weeks after she’s born. Folding down the front of the diaper exposes the stump to more air and speeds up the falling-off process. Until then, limit your baby-washing efforts to sponge baths. Other than keeping the stump clean and dry, there’s no need to do anything special to take care of it. You can clean any drainage on or around the cord by gently wiping it off with a cotton swab or wet washcloth. When it does fall off, a small amount of bleeding is normal.
Dads in the NICU
If your baby was born before about 32 weeks and had a very low birth weight, or if you had multiples, she (or they) will have to spend some time in the neo-natal (or newborn) intensive care unit (NICU, pronounced “Nick-U”). In the case of healthy-but-small babies, there’s not a lot to worry about—they’re called “growers and feeders” and just have to bulk up to four or five pounds before you can take them home. But not all babies in the NICU are healthy.
Watching your child struggle to hold on to life can be a frightening and humbling experience. (Even looking at a preemie can be scary. Depending on how premature the baby is, the eyes may still be fused shut, the skin may be translucent and reddish, and she may look more like a fetus than a baby. Over time, though, she’ll gradually look more and more “normal.”) A lot of dads I talked to told me that the feeling of helplessness was overwhelming. Not only were they powerless to help their child, but they often felt left out or ignored by the medical staff, who focused almost exclusively on the mother. For that reason, most new dads who have children in the NICU are generally left to come up with coping strategies on their own. Here are some that worked for many of the dads in my research:
• Try not to take it personally. The truth is that although it might feel like you’re being left out, the staff’s primary concern is to save your baby’s life—and it should be yours too. And if the staff is focusing on your partner more than on you, that’s because it’s important that the baby eat, and her mother’s milk is the best medicine.
• Don’t be afraid to ask questions. You have a right to know exactly what’s going on with your child every step of the way. A lot of men find that understanding the procedures, the reasons, the odds of success, what’s normal, and what’s not—is incredibly helpful, not only with coping with the situation, but also with bonding with their baby.
• Ask about kangaroo care. In Colombia, the mortality rate for premature infants