Don't get me wrong, there is nothing great about diaper rash. Red hot skin spanning the entirety of MLO's diaper shrouded nether regions means unhappy baby and guilty feeling parents. We tried Aquaphor, Desitin, Boudreaux's Butt Paste, aloe with lidocaine, anti-eczema lotion, 1% Hydrocortisone and Nystatin (the latter three on recommendation by the Doc) all to no avail. During our battle with this ailment we tried the Huggies Pure and Natural diapers, the 7th Generation diapers and the cloth diapers with the Bioliners (when we used creams) and nothing seemed to work.The rash would subside for a few days only to return with a vengeance. At times it seemed that the creams actually made things worse.
Sitting for a period of time in a car seat, or even just the high chair for a meal, exacerbated the inflammation. In addition to the redness, he had areas of dryness around where his Bummis cover touched his thigh. After I noticed this, I was careful not to let that junction get too tight, but the dryness and irritation persisted. I also noticed that this seemed to become an issue after he learned to crawl and sit. I suspected that some of the irritation was due to chafing, as the areas of redness were not confined to his bottom, but also coincided with places the diaper might rub.
While we switched up the diapers during trips out of town, we never decided to just try the Huggies by themselves for an extended period of time. As you may know from my other posts, our standard was to use the prefold diapers provided by our diaper service at home and the 7th Generation diapers when we were out or travelling for days. Now and then we would sprinkle the Huggies in there, but we never used them exclusively. Hubby and I began to suspect that the relative roughness of the 7th Generation diapers and possibly a component in our diaper service's detergent were the culprits behind this irritation. Being scientists, we decided to experiment.
I got a package of the Huggies and have used them exclusively for the last 8 days. Within a few days the rash was gone. He had some lingering redness and the dryness around his thighs persisted, but the severity has greatly decreased. In the last couple of days his redness as worsened, but it is less generalized and less intense. Throughout this diaper switching I have been applying the anti-eczema lotion when and where he seemed dry at every changing, and of course after every bath. I started to use the Boudreaux's yesterday, although it didn't seem to help. I also have reason to believe he may have a mild allergy to it, so I need to get some Desitin and try that instead.
Now that we seem to have a handle on this issue, we need to decide how to proceed with our original desire to cloth diaper. The first step is to contact our diaper service and let them know about our problem. They may have experienced this kind of issue before, and may have an alternative detergent we could try. However, I suspect that chafing caused as much of a problem as the possible allergy, since exclusive use of the 7th Generation diapers never eased his irritation. Possible alternatives include purchasing very soft prefold diapers or pocket diapers and washing them ourselves using detergent we know works for us. I fear that after making that investment (particularly if we choose the pocket diaper route), the issue will return and we'll end up using the Huggies again. To mitigate our losses, we could buy a day's worth of diapers and try that for a week (doing laundry every night). In that case we will have still purchased 7-10 diapers, and that many pocket diapers would run me close to $200. I find it hard to believe that a day's worth of diapers could cost that much money. Used ones are an option, although then the quality may be low (due to irresponsible use and care) and we've spent money for nothing. Ugh.
Do any of you guys have a recommendation on how we should proceed?
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