Flats and Hand Washing Challenge: Day 6

This week I am participating in the 3rd Annual Flats and Hand Washing Challenge hosted by Dirty Diaper Laundry.

Today I wanted to talk about how flats and/or prefolds could be incorporated into a crisis pregnancy setting. Because women facing a crisis pregnancy often aren't financially prepared to have a baby, offering information and access to cloth diapers could be a huge benefit for them.

Many crisis pregnancy centers offer classes for pregnant women and their partners, and have some reward system set up to win free baby gear. So flats and/or prefolds would be a good addition to the "baby store." For this to work, crisis pregnancy centers would have to rely on donations from churches and others of money to purchase diapers, or of the different types of cloth diapers: pockets, prefolds, flats (or anything that can be used as a flat, such as flour sack or tea towels, receiving blankets, or even old t-shirts to be cut up). Other items for the store could include covers, snappis, diaper pins, diaper sprayers, and wet bags.

While it would be nice to have flats/prefolds in the store area, unless the moms know about them and how to use them, it might be pretty useless. So I was also thinking that offering a cloth diapering class would be a good way to introduce moms to the ease and benefits of cloth. Classes would consist of an introduction to the different types of cloth diapers and how to make them themselves (such as with the t-shirt flat), how to use them on baby, and how to wash and care for them. This could include a practice wash cycle with hand washing or with the bucket style camp washer for those who have to use laundromats or have no access to washing machines. They could also learn how to make the washer themselves, and even have a quick segment on how easy and cheap it could be to make their own laundry detergent! Once the class was completed, participants could be given a list of places to purchase diaper items, both local and online, and a set amount of "store cash" to use in the cloth diaper store.

Obviously, it would take a lot to get a whole class like this started. So perhaps a better starting place is to follow the KISS method: Keep It Simple, Stupid. The class could focus only on flats and covers, hand washing, and homemade detergent. It only needs to be one evening, really. Once the class generated enough interest from both participants and donators, it could expand to include more diaper types and topics.

I truly believe that if classes like this could be incorporated into crisis pregnancy centers, it could be a huge benefit to moms worried about the cost of caring for their beautiful children, especially because diapers can be such a big cost. Supporting moms during crisis pregnancy is such an important aspect of preventing abortion, and that is a responsibility we all have.

Deo Volente
Breanna