New or soon-to-be caregivers of infants can quickly find themselves in a debate between disposable and cloth diapers.
Whether it is the raw material use to make the diapers, water consumption and electricity use for the cleaning of cloth diapers, or the significant landfill space and long decomposition time for disposable diapers, both types have a negative impact on our natural resources, despite eco-friendly solutions offered by diaper manufacturers.
So what if there was a way to go diaper-free? At only a month old, baby Connor has rarely soiled his diaper since his mother, schoolteacher Kelly Ireland, started practicing Elimination Communication (EC) with him.
EC uses both infant cues and timing to prompt Kelly to offer her baby opportunities to eliminate in an appropriate place.
According to Christine Gross-Loh, author of Diaper-Free Baby, the practice of responding to infants’ elimination needs existed historically and still is practiced today in other cultures.
Where EC is common-place, many people think it strange how much we rely on diapers. Contrary to popular Western thought, infants are not adapted to unknowingly soiling themselves. Rather, they can provide cues that they need to eliminate.
A baby uses about 6,000 diapers by the time he/she is toilet trained, according to Laurie Boucke, author of Infant Potty Training: A Gentle and Primeval Method Adapted to Modern Living.
But, with EC, Boucke says that by “lessening or eliminating the use of diapers, you can conserve natural resources, decrease pollution and reduce your carbon footprint.”
EC also creates a more hygienic circumstance around the handling of infant waste, even when on-the-go.
Denise McFarland, a maternity nurse who also practices EC with her son Samuel, recently took a road-trip to Southern California and pottied him along the way using a portable container. According to Denise, practicing EC on the 15-day road trip took some creativity and planning but was really no problem.
Geraldine Jordan practiced EC with her third child and says that “some people who use EC have their babies go completely diaper-free, others use diapers as a back-up. We have had a tremendous savings on diapers for our child.”
Their experience with EC in contributing to a greener world has motivated Jordan, McFarland and Ireland to become research collaborators under the guidance of Dr. Landa Terblanche from the Trinity Western University (TWU) School of Nursing.
This research group hosts local workshops for the public to promote the use of EC. The next one is on Saturday, July 18.
For information about learning EC and participating in the research study, visit the TWU EC Research Group Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TWUECResearchGroup or contact Dr. Geraldine Jordan, Environmental Health Lab Director at TWU, at 604-219-2785.
To register for the July 18 workshop, visit www.eventbrite.ca.
The workshop will be held at the Walnut Grove Community Centre (Room 1) from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
David Clements, Ph.D., is a professor of biology and environmental studies at Trinity Western University.
