Diaper Rash and Creams

As much as we would like to never have to deal with a single diaper rash the fact is they happen to everyone. In my experience they happen less when my son is in cloth than they do when he's in disposables and they are never as severe but we have had our share.

My first caution to those battling diaper rash would be to locate the cause of the rash and attempt to treat the cause instead of just covering up the problem with diaper creams.

Dr Sears has a fantastic website about cause/effect for diaper rashes.

Okay, that mumbo-jumbo having been said let's talk about cloth safe diaper creams.

A good majority of your main-stream and most popular diaper creams have ingredients that are very bad for cloth diapers; mainly fish oil. Once these ingredients are in the diaper they are very, very hard to get out and may need several rounds of vigorous stripping.

The same can be said of a majority of prescription creams.

Not to fear, however. If your doctor prescribes you a cream you don't have to ditch your cloth. There are liners available that you can put between your diaper and the cream that will protect it.

But for the run-of-the-mill, mysterious diaper rash, there are plenty of cloth diaper safe creams out there.

A word of warning: some diaper manufacturers' warranty will be voided if you use any diaper cream (despite how "safe" it may be) without a liner, so if you want to be really safe you could (and probably should) use a liner with those diapers as well.

What makes a diaper cream safe or not is how well it washes out of your cloth without undo or excessive staining or causing buildup. Obviously this is based on the ingredients and the type of cloth being used.

Some cloth fibers are more forgiving than others. For instance, it may be easier to wash cream from cotton prefolds than it is to wash it from microfiber inserts or synthetic suede cloth. What works well for one diaper may not work so well with another.

Again, it all depends on the ingredients of the cream and the diaper.

A good rule of thumb I have found to be true in my own diapering is, the more natural the cream and the more natural the diaper, the better it will all wash out (and usually the better and faster it will work).

There are plenty of "rash remedies" that have been used in this home that are as natural as you can get. We have used breastmilk (which works wonders on all sorts of cuts, scraps and other skin irritations (DO NOT use breastmilk on a yeast rash, though, it will only make it worse)), olive oil and coconut oil with great success. Our other favored rash remedies are baking soda soaks and the use of breatheable diapers for long periods like naps, car rides and overnight.

I have also found cotton and hemp to be the most forgiveable fabrics when it comes to washing out rash remidies. Not to mention that hemp and bamboo both have natural antibacterial properties to them that help combat diaper rash.

Now, FINALLY, to the actual store-bought creams.

I have only used two store-bought, designated diaper creams: Baby Bees (Burts Bees) Diaper Rash Ointment and Weleda Calendula Dipaer Care.

The Baby Bees (Burts Bees) cream had a very strong odor to it and stained my diapers pretty badly. Though it did wash out over time and the odor was tolerable I still was not thrilled with it and definetly could not use it on my synthetic cloth without heavy buildup.

The Weleda Cream has a very soothing smell to it and worked wonderfully. It caused no staining in my diapers and to be safe I always use a hemp liner when using it with my sythetic diapers.

Weleda's Baby Cream (pictured above), though not designated as a diaper cream, has also worked marvelously on mild skin irritations whether in the diaper area or elsewhere.

For more information on Cloth Diaper safe creams, check out Pinstripes and Polkadots.