28 ms·

Why are diapers so expensive?

258 points by Avshalom 9y ago

shiftpgdn 9y ago
My wife and I cloth diapered both of our children. In addition to being radically cheaper it also resolved rashes/eczema in both kids as well as accelerated potty training. There is an 'ick' factor but liners and a toilet sprayer take care of 99% of that.
- paulryanrogers 9y ago
  Diaper services can also be better for the environment and the wallet.
  - beagle3 9y ago
    That depends on your location; my experience in NYC was that diaper services were just a little more expensive than buying small bags of disposable at CVS, and vastly more expensive than ordering bigger bags of disposable at Amazon.
- soperj 9y ago
  I found with liners it was even better than diapers. No smell because everything goes down the toilet. Mind you, my kids were eating solids before we put them in cloth.
- corvallis 9y ago
  A lot of people don't live in places with an in-home washer/dryer. They have to go elsewhere in the building for pay laundry or to the laundromat. This makes it logistically and financially nearly impossible to use cloth diapers. Not to mention the substantial up front cost for cloth diapers, which makes them inaccessible for people living paycheck to paycheck. This is an example of how having money allows you to save money.
  - mc32 9y ago
    I imagine for those, you could use a washboard in a shower/tub. It's not a huge volume and the "dirt" is not caked in, for the most part, so it should be a fairly easy wash.
  - akira2501 9y ago
    When I think about UBI I worry about responsible spending and wonder if just subsidizing common items food, clothing (diapers) and household goods wouldn't be a smarter solution overall. In relation to the case in the article, I wonder if we couldn't subsidize certain items and allow parents to receive a one month supply at low to no cost? Why should we give disadvantaged people $180 a month just to let several middlemen take a cut via the corner drugstore?
    - MereInterest 9y ago
      The main idea behind UBI is that the government doesn't know exactly what each individual needs at any given time, but does know that those things can probably be bought for money. One person might need diapers, another socks, and yet another a car payment to take their child to school. Given money increases flexibility, as opposed to a fixed list of items that may or may not be needed.
    - linkregister 9y ago
      This has been done in the past, e.g. government cheese. It turns out that letting the market deliver necessities based off of demand is far more efficient than the alternative. That would be a government anticipates how much a community will use, what styles of diapers they'll want, etc.
      - zeth___ 9y ago
        [[citation needed]] And I mean a comparison between governments of equally developed nations. That means that you compare the USSR to Brazil and not the USA. Since the difference in HDI between the USSR and Brazil was smaller than that of the USSR to the USA.
      - 9y ago
- bgirard 9y ago
  Same, at first I wasn't sold on the concept but my wife wanted to try. It's way cheaper and better for environment. Now I don't regret it and find the idea of using 100% disposables silly. We still use one disposable each night because they absorb better or one here and there when we're out. The upfront cost was $150 so that might be an issue for some.
  - JackFr 9y ago
    If you didn't have in home access to a washer and dryer (that is, assuming you do) would your opinion change?
    - bgirard 9y ago
      It depends. If I can afford it then I'm likely to exclude any residence that doesn't have a washer and dryer. And if I can't afford it then I'm more like to use cloth diapers because then the savings is significant.
- war1025 9y ago
  We cloth diaper too (3 kids, a two and a half year old potty trained for about a year now, and 5 month old twins). Personally, I find disposable diapers to be way more disgusting than cloth. With cloth, you rinse it out and the majority of the gross stuff is down the drain. With disposables, you end up with a garbage can literally full of poop. Its like having a mini pit toilet in your house. We have also noticed, like you mentioned, that cloth diapers are easier on the babies' skin and makes potty training significantly easier. For anyone who is reading this and may be interested in cloth diapering: Get some quality covers and then buy a ton of flour sack towels. They make the best inserts. Super absorbent, cheap, and unfolds to a single layer, which means they get cleaner and dry faster.
  - dancek 9y ago
    Props for doing that. We tried with our twins, but eventually decided cloth diapers are for people with single kids that aren't burnt out.
    - milesvp 9y ago
      Ugh. Yeah, I regret deeply buying cloth diapers for my twins. The economics looks better for twins, since you only need like 50% more, but the time premium is higher than expected with twins, so it ended up eating into too much prescious downtime. Worse is we couldn't get them to stop drinking the majority of their fluid intake before bed, and the pee at night required us to use absorbant disposables anyways. In the end I'm not sure they were a net positive investment, even ignoring the higher than expected opportunity cost of havings twins.
    - josefresco 9y ago
      "cloth diapers are for people with single kids" Maybe not for twins, but "one kid at-a-time" is more than doable and the second kid is where the real money savings come in.
      - dancek 9y ago
        Yeah, I meant that by single (English is my second language). And of course cloth diapers are probably a good idea for twins too, but I just couldn't handle it. There comes a point where you'll give almost anything to get five minutes of free time every now and then.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  how does this not contaminate your washer with feces?
  - Aloha 9y ago
    Detergent and water gets just about anything clean.. However, you presoak them, and scrape a majority of the feces off into the toilet at change time.
  - white-flame 9y ago
    Do you think your washer is somehow not already contaminated with feces, from washing underwear? I read an article a while ago that tested and found substantial fecal residue in typical washing machines, without cloth diapers going through them. Can't find it now among all the cloth diaper related search hits.
    - craftyguy 9y ago
      Good point.
    - astura 9y ago
      My grandma always used to wash undies by hand separately and then pour boiling water over them. I found it to be very weird when I was a kid, but she might have been onto something. I would do this if I was living with an immunocompromised person but its probably overkill for a healthy family. It's also suggested you clean the washer every once in a while too. Fecal bacteria is found everywhere it seems, so that's why frequent hand washing (especially before food prep) is important.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    You rinse diapers in the toilet before washing them.
- stevekemp 9y ago
  We're also using cloth diapers, except when travelling (which is pretty rare), but it has had no impact on the childs exzema. (As expected really, half of the rashes are on his arms/torso and completely away from the diaper-end!)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- lnsru 9y ago
  We did the same. Putting this thing into cloth removed ‘ick’ factor: https://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/B00E5NN4KQ/ref=mh_s9_acsd_top_b4Kbwkh_c_x_1_w?pf_rd_m=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&pf_rd_s=mobile-hybrid-3&pf_rd_r=RC9EXB7TJKS2TZ5TBBBD&pf_rd_r=RC9EXB7TJKS2TZ5TBBBD&pf_rd_t=30901&pf_rd_p=3e584788-68e7-51f7-859b-a6906949c89d&pf_rd_p=3e584788-68e7-51f7-859b-a6906949c89d&pf_rd_i=3969102031 https://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/B00E5NN4KQ/ref=mh_s9_acsd_top_... It can be washed 2-3 times if nothing serious happened.
- collyw 9y ago
  Its a whole lot more environmentally friendly as well. And that's something that will probably affect your kids more than you.
- dbatten 9y ago
  Serious question(s) from a father of 2 under 2... How do you get the cloth diapers clean? Like, really clean so they don't still smell after they've been cleaned? My wife and I were planning on cloth diapering. We bought some high-end cloth diaper and liners and started on our merry way. We found that no matter what we did, our little guy smelled like piss all the time. My wife was washing diapers 2 or 3 times in between wearings, "stripping" them to remove remaining smells, etc., etc. Our water bill went up by literally $50 a month, we were buying all kinds of detergents to try and get the smells to go away, and we had already invested a ton of money actually buying diapers in the first place. Not to mention that my wife was spending all her time washing, re-washing, and folding diapers _and_ our kid still smelled like piss. In our case, disposables were a god-send. The little dude is happy, he doesn't smell, my wife doesn't spend half her day cleaning diapers, and (especially since we buy diapers in bulk on good sales), we've found disposable diapers to actually be far _cheaper_ than what we were paying for water, detergent, startup costs, etc. on cloth. I would never go back, just because of the time savings alone.
  - jetcata 9y ago
    You need to soak them in something stronger before washing - something bleach based. Napisan is great for this (and also for any white shirts etc).
  - sailfast 9y ago
    Have you tried putting them in the sun? Sunlight does a lot of good on diapers. If you have the option I'd put them on a line outside. As for the other stuff, we used a double-rinse with powdered detergent and things seemed to work pretty well. The time factor was _super_ annoying. Maintenance for cloth diapers is a full-time job sometimes, but it felt good not to add a billion pounds of waste to the landfill. Full disclosure: Now that we travel a lot more, we're pretty much only in disposables.
  - chevman 9y ago
    We used cloth diapers on my son (who is now almost 4). Our technique was as follows: -One wash cycle in warm water using no soap. -One wash cycle in hot water using soap. -Dry Every couple weeks we would put white vinegar in the no-soap cycle. This helps cut the smell down. Every couple months we would put a small amount of bleach in the no-soap cycle. Any more frequent than this and we found the diapers then irritated our son's skin. If I had to do it all over again, not sure how I would choose. As you call out, there are additional costs to the cloth diaper approach (water, detergent, etc) that add up, plus it takes quite a bit of time. One advantage that we found is that our son, and other folks we know who used cloth diapers, all had kids who ended up potty training sooner (anywhere from a couple months to 6+ months earlier) than kids wearing disposables.
- castlecrasher2 9y ago
  Where did you get cheap cloth diapers? I haven't looked too much into it but some women in my family recommended against it because they said cloth diapers are expensive.
- balls187 9y ago
  We travel a lot with our son. No way we were gonna do that with cloth diapers.
zik 9y ago
I feel like this article was an extended ad for Huggies. Particularly with the happy ending being "Tonight, she was bringing home Huggies".
- nielsbot 9y ago
  advertorial? I mean, it happens all the time, right? e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/weekinreview/13goodman.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/weekinreview/13goodman.ht... (although that article is from 7 years ago...) Sorry, I read more articles about this recently... blogs doing paid mentioning/sponsorships and not disclosing it.
  - nielsbot 9y ago
    I meant to say, read more articles about this more recently, but don't remember where and a very quick Google search didn't return anything that seemed familiar..
- LitFan 9y ago
  You're absolutely right. There was only one mention of cloth diapers anywhere in here, and it was quickly dismissed by "they are difficult to clean without a machine". Nothing about how cost effective they can be, and then we go right back to learning about how huggies are better than generics.
  - fokinsean 9y ago
    Yup the South Park episode "Truth and Advertising" is become more and more true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Advertising
projektir 9y ago
Whenever something like this comes up, my first question is always: "OK, how did we do this before diapers were invented, and what happened to that?"
- rdtsc 9y ago
  > OK, how did we do this before diapers were invented, and what happened to that?" My Mom always mentions it as well. She used a stack of cloth diapers, then hand washed them, dried them and even ironed them. It was a pretty labor and time intensive process. She says we are lucky to be able to get a box of diapers from Amazon, use them, throw them in a diaper pail and close the lid and not have to worry about it.
  - blackn1ght 9y ago
    She didn't need to iron them though. Now you just chuck them in the washing machine and then line dry them or put them on a low heat in the dryer. The sheer amount of nappies that were in our outdoor bin kinda made us realise that we needed to change to cloth.
    - rdtsc 9y ago
      She didn't but she liked everything to be neat, clean and organized. But for practical purposes agree, it's not needed.
- Nition 9y ago
  Cloth diapers are still around, and better and easier than they were then.
- flukus 9y ago
  It's a good question, but often the answer is "we had a stay at home mum that had time for all this stuff", which I think could be the answer here (I don't know if cloth diapers are time consuming or not). Older solutions might be perfectly viable but no longer practical because of cultural changes.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Hermel 9y ago
Even 50 cent diapers are less expensive than the time it costs you to change them. So I don't think they qualify as "so expensive".
- steve918 9y ago
  Maybe you should have read the article. Maybe not expensive for a software developer making 6 figures a year, but that's not most people. For people living near poverty levels $1k a year is a lot of money.
  - j4kp07 9y ago
    > $1k a year This person has never had kids.
- dingaling 9y ago
  I'll do the maths for the UK since I have numbers. 50 cents is about 0.70 GBP UK minimum wage is 7.83 GBP per hour pre-tax. So one nappy at that rate is 5.5 minutes of work. That's considerably longer than the time it takes to remove and clean.
  - kemiller 9y ago
    It’s 0.35 GBP.
- senorjazz 9y ago
  The environmental factor is also pretty huge. Store a weeks worth of disposables separate and the amount of landfill over the course nappy period of a baby is insane!
ythn 9y ago
> Diapering a child now takes about $1,000 a year for an average product. That doesn't seem right. Are these people buying the smallest quantities possible? You can buy ~300 diapers for $30 on amazon. That's only $360 /year.
- atwebb 9y ago
  No source but I believe that's a big issue. If you don't have money, you can't buy at scale (or store/transport it). Though here it isn't that much (relatively) like say buying bulk beef vs store bought.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  folks living paycheck to paycheck cannot afford big upfront costs like this. even if it saves them money in the long term. too bad personal finance isn't a thing taught in public schools.
  - Swizec 9y ago
    Even if you know you’re losing money, if you can’t afford to invest you can’t invest.
  - mantas 9y ago
    $30 is big upfront costs? Seriously? Of course, that may be a bigger sum in 3rd world countries. But they don't have Amazon there at all and probably don't use diapers either.
    - j4kp07 9y ago
      Don't you get it? Anecdotes and hypotheticals trump logic and common sense.
      - zbentley 9y ago
        How about statistics instead of anecdotes? This article is pretty well sourced, and, while not all of the math checks out, the preponderance of evidence seems to point towards "yes, that is a regular choice that poor people in the US make": http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051702053.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...
aaron695 9y ago
> Cloth diapers aren’t always an option. And here lies the total and utter bullshit. They ARE an option. At an alleged $1000 a year, a payback scheme on a cheap washing machine would allow cloth and ease the work load on the mother. The total and utter arrogance people have with disposable diapers blows me away. There are cases you can make up in your head of a single mother working two jobs and still not being able to get a loan for a cheap washing machine / not allowed in the apartment, but this is NOT what this article is talking. If you want more time watching GoT feel free to use disposable diapers, but don't bullshit there are no other cheaper options. In other funny stuff there is quite a market for upscale reusable diapers embroidered etc that cost $100's each.
scandox 9y ago
Ireland 5 nappies a day x 365 days = 1825 nappies / 30 per pack = 61 packs x euro 2.99 [1] = euro 182.39 per annum Which sounds about right to me. Where are they getting a $1000 from? [1] https://www.aldi.ie/extra-large-nappies-size-6/p/059624005863400 https://www.aldi.ie/extra-large-nappies-size-6/p/05962400586...
- DonRico 9y ago
  Well in smaller EU countries the prices tend to be little bit higher due to quantities but year that 1000$ doesn't add up. ATM couldn't find anything under 0.18€/piece in Estonia. https://www.prismamarket.ee/products/search/teipm%C3%A4he https://www.prismamarket.ee/products/search/teipm%C3%A4he
- NiekvdMaas 9y ago
  Same for Netherlands. The month-box of 210 huggies costs 34 euro, so you get a number around 300 euro/year. If you buy from stores with discount, you'll get a price of around 11 cents per nappy: https://www.luierinfo.nl/aanbiedingen/pampers/premium-protection/1 https://www.luierinfo.nl/aanbiedingen/pampers/premium-protec...
- sampleinajar 9y ago
  They do their math in the article. "In the United States, the average diaper sells for about 25 cents. The quarters add up quickly. Newborns need as many as 12 changes a day. That’s $21 per week, or $84 per month. Bigger kids need fewer, but their diapers are more expensive." It's a worst case calculation biased towards newborns, which they don't remain all year, obviously. For me, it averaged more like $800 - $400 a year. Also, 2.99 a pack is insane for me as an American. That would go for about $8-$10 USD, depending on size.
duncan_bayne 9y ago
I'd probably use cloth nappies if I were a stay-at-home dad. As it stands, I'd much rather put some of the money I'm earning towards the convenience of disposables.
djrogers 9y ago
There are a couple of ‘facts’ listed here that don’t line up with my current reality and very recent knowledge (3 kids, most recent is 18mo). First off, 12 changes a day is a huge outlier - even for a newborn. 8 would be a more reasonable number, and it drops down to the 4-6 range in the first year, and by now we’re at 3 if we don’t go swimming. Second item that sounds waaay off is $1000/yr for diapers. Again, that has to be an outlier based on the worst possible set of assumptions. A box of 168 diapers lasts about a month and costs ~$40. That doesn’t add up... And finally, many of the charities I work with will hand out diapers or cards for free diapers to anyone who asks. If you’re really in a bind, call a local church, women’s shelter, or commissary! We really do want to help, but we have to know you need it.
- mattbee 9y ago
  I think you missed the part of the article where they talked about never having enough cash to buy in bulk, instead buying at 2 or 3x the unit cost in 5s and 10s from the corner shop.
  - tw04 9y ago
    When bulk is $40, you're just making some really, really poor life decisions if you both have a kid, and can't find a way to save that much money in a 30 day window.
    - egypturnash 9y ago
      Condoms break, and it’s pretty damn hard to have an abortion if the only place you can get it done is halfway across the state.
      - briandear 9y ago
        Adoption? And, there are abortion clinics in Tampa Bay, where this story took place.
        9y ago
mythas 9y ago
I have an 8 month old and just the other day was thinking how are they able to make these things so cheaply? Seriously for 80 cents a day I can avoid the nightmare of cloth diapers (sorry planet). All the estimates in the post are soooo far off the mark. They are done with the cost of premium diapers for 4 year olds at the rate of use of a sub 2 month old. I’d say 350 bucks Canadian a year if I extrapolate out our costs to complete our kids first year.
- triangleman 9y ago
  The planet will be fine. Maybe better off, in fact--do you have any idea how much water it takes to wash these things?
  - 0xcafecafe 9y ago
    What about the amount of water it takes to manufacture disposable diapers?
- giarc 9y ago
  $350 a year is about what I pay. I have diapers arrive each month on Amazon Subscribe and Save. The price per box averages about $30 and we get 1/month. Every so often we might need to buy an additional box if we are running low.
ringe 9y ago
"Diapers are sold at much lower prices in Norway than in the rest of Europe. The large price difference has led to smuggling of diapers, mainly to Eastern-European countries. The diaper smuggler gain both from the price difference and by evading taxes on the trade" https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/57685 https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/57685
- maaaats 9y ago
  I was also thinking about that. Normally we do everything we can to buy stuff from abroad, but for diapers even low cost countries buy here. Kinda absurd.
chrissnell 9y ago
This article is so frustrating. The helplessness and dependence are just sad. Cloth diapers cost less than $1.50 each in a 10-pack. If you are poor enough, you can wash them in a bucket with bar soap. That's what virtually everyone did before washers were invented. I'm saddened that this girl didn't figure this out. I know first-hand, when you're poor and desperate, you figure shit out. Unless, of course, you have a system that encourages dependence on public assistance and actually ends up hurting a woman's self-sufficiency and puts her little boy at a high risk of being helpless and dependent, too. I want to help them, but the answer isn't more subsidies. I want to see her get that better job, even if it means losing the assistance. I want to see Dad stay in the home because that's so critical for developing emotional control in young adults. I want their son to grow up scrappy and industrious, with a good sense of how to get by even things are tough because tough times happen for everyone. I don't blame this woman. I'm not pissed at her. I'm pissed, however, at the politicians who have created this dependency web to trap people like this woman and ensure that there will always be a need for do-gooder politicians.
- Nition 9y ago
  I'd also add: - If you'd really prefer modern style cloth diapers (prefold, pocket etc) instead of the cheap old-school flat diapers, often you can buy second-hand ones that are hardly used (or not used at all!). - If you have any more children, your cost for buying diapers is now $0 because you already have them.
  - hashgowda 9y ago
    Please post a link to the modern style diapers...
    - sleet 9y ago
      Just the first one that came up, I'm sure there are cheaper options. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/free-shipping-100-cotton-waterproof-sleeve-cloth-diaper-with-cotton-inner-one-size-baby-reusable-diaper/32674726427.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/free-shipping-100-cotton-wat...
radicalbyte 9y ago
I saw 0 difference between pampers and supermarket branded nappies. Only the piss strip from pampers is handy for the first two months. However marketing is powerful and most people are emotionally driven not analytically driven. So we get this situation. Medical has the same problem.
dmitriid 9y ago
Recently I'm becoming more and more repulsed by the "everyday life is shit in the US" news. 1 in 3 families in the US cannot afford diapers? A full one third of families? The richest country in the world, indeed.
scandox 9y ago
To everyone talking about cloth nappies: you're insane. You do it for 3 years. Then do it for another 3 years. Then talk. They are a fecking nightmare to manage.
- hycaria 9y ago
  Two solutions : Shorten the span (3 years sure is a lot, especially when reading other testimonies here). Don't repeat.
- senorjazz 9y ago
  3 kids, all been in cloth / reusable nappies. We were not militant strict. Used dispoable for night due to extra absorption. But day time use, pretty much only reusable. Anecdotal of course, but they all were toilet trained before other kids. Whether that is because it is more noticeable the nappy is wet and uncomfortable or other factors (wife was home all the time, kids in a nursery from a young age all day seemed to lag further behind). But I think the cloth nappies definitely played a part.
  - ggg9990 9y ago
    “Wife was home all the time” is the key here and a luxury not available to all.
    - giarc 9y ago
      Cloth diapers are expensive. My wife and I bought them and tried them for about a week before giving up and selling our stock. So for one there is a large upfront cost, and if parents can get over that hurdle, there is also the need to find a daycare that will 1. accept a child in cloth diapers and 2. be reliable enough to send back your cloth diaper investment.
hennsen 9y ago
„Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark have poured billions of dollars into research and development“ Can that be true? Really Billions? Or just a story to justify a pricing strategy to maximize profits with those who can pay it leaving others aside?
- ggg9990 9y ago
  Not per year, but in total over the last 100 years is believable.
mixmastamyk 9y ago
Hmm, not one commenter here in 120+ addressed the point of the article, namely why don't companies make cheaper diapers, instead of only ratcheting up the high tech? Obviously it's more profitable, but are there other factors?
- NoGravitas 9y ago
  There doesn't need to be any factor other than "it's more profitable", though. The higher tech is there to produce higher margins.
columb 9y ago
In UK nappies are ultra cheap. My Wife uses Lidl's nappies but Aldi's are equally good (if not the same!). They cost around 5-7 pence each. Can't really exactly remember because they are so cheap. Pampers are more expensive but by much.
- PMan74 9y ago
  ALDI Junior Nappies Size 5 (40) €2.99 - €7.5c each Pampers Premium Size 5 (35) - €8.99 - €25.5 each Bigger packs are cheaper per nappy. If you can wait for offers you usually can get the Pampers much cheaper e.g. right now 2 x 72 pack for €23, 16c per nappy. We started off with Pampers and moved to ALDI, never looked back. But all in all at 4 nappies a day you'd just break €110 a year with ALDI.
- columb 9y ago
  *by not much. Sorry, 17,5 flight is taking it's toll.
- lebski88 9y ago
  Yes I noticed this too: > In the United States, the average diaper sells for about 25 cents That's so much more expensive than here. Looking at the pictures you can get the same brands and nappies for half the price here. In the decent sized packs from amazon pampers are only a touch more expensive but yeah the Lidl ones are just as good as far as I can see. We mostly used pampers because they are cheap with a subscription but have used Lidl ones fairly often. Shame we're not very close to a Lidl store (well we are, but traffic).
  - mcv 9y ago
    I just checked Dutch prices: googled and took the first link for diapers for newborns: 52 diapers for €7, or €5 if you buy in bulk. So that's 10-13 cents for random big chain diapers of a good brand. Seems to be a typical price. At another chain, I get the same prices for another brand. Looking for the biggest A brand, I find 72 diapers for €15, which is a bit more expensive, but still less than 25 cents (though eurocents are worth a bit more than dollar cents, of course).
- 9y ago
Buetol 9y ago
The Wikipedia article is very informative also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaper From Pampers making big sizes for the child to be dependant until the age of 5, to skin irritation because of diapers. My guess. You just can't expect the same quality of care when people get poorer and poorer in general.
ToFab123 9y ago
Because you need them and do not really have any other choice. The same reason that a razor are so expensive, and toothbrushes, and female products, and shampoo and ... you get the drift?
soVeryTired 9y ago
Looks like a whole comment thread got deleted because it got too political. I understand that political discussion isn't right for HN, but I don't approve of comments disappearing silently. It would be nice to see a note from the moderators explaining that that's what happened.
- DanBC 9y ago
  In your profile there's an option called "showDead" which you can toggle to show comments that have been killed. Comments can be killed by mods, but I think the vast majority are killed by user flags not moderator action. The karma threshold to flag a comment is small, about 50. TO flag a comment you click the timestamp of the comment, which will take you to a page where the flag option appears. The karma threshold to downvote a comment is higher. I think it's about 500 or 750 or so.
  - soVeryTired 9y ago
    Thanks for the info
- kolpa 9y ago
  When the mods/admins intervene, they usually "detach and mark off-topic" (move to bottom of page), not delete. Users flag posts to hide them.
spaceandshit 9y ago
Just to provide some perspective, I have worked on the structural analysis (FEA) of diapers for P&G, when I was working at an engineering consulting firm. As the article states, these companies pour millions into R&D, and for me that included running simulations to determine if the diaper's material properties were appropriate. To do this, I was running simulations of a diaper being wrapped onto a baby, the baby walking, and then pooping. The pressure, forces, stresses on the diaper were calculated and we drew conclusions based on these simulations to improve the quality. When I was working there, I also worked on new razors, loofahs, bottles, etc.
- Game_Ender 9y ago
  As a parent thank you! It is amazing the things a diaper managed to neatly contain. I always imagined there was a group dedicated to design things the elastic catch on the edge of the diaper.
ada1981 9y ago
I was expecting to see people brainstorming technical solutions... Anyone interested in brainstorming some solutions to this? What do the component parts cost of the best diaper? Are there ways to bring those costs down by an order of magnitude? How about an X Prize for Diaper Design? What questions should be asked around this problem? I'd be up for hosting a video virtual brainstorm of this topic if anyone is interested, let me know.
GirlsCanCode 9y ago
I change my cat's litter box once a week, and scoop it out twice a day.
jetcata 9y ago
Does anyone still use cloth diapers these days? They’re reusable and produce so much less waste.
- emddudley 9y ago
  Yes
- emddudley 9y ago
  Yes, my family did a few years ago. I would guess that we used around 80% fewer disposable diapers... disposables are still useful when traveling and other miscellaneous situations.
quantumhobbit 9y ago
Disposable Diapers are surprisingly high tech, or at least well engineered. See: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xYNX8y6lQMc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xYNX8y6lQMc
JustSomeNobody 9y ago
> Safety net programs are little help. Only one form of public assistance can be spent on diapers, and in Florida the average benefit hasn’t increased in more than two decades. Why do we hate the poor so much?
planetjones 9y ago
It would appear that a large part of the problem is the person's finances are in such bad order, they cannot afford to buy the diapers in bulk. Could the local church or community organisation not buy the nappies in the bulk and then sell them at the lowest item price possible ? When in such poverty (and potentially from a less educated background) I know finding solutions is difficult. But this is where community should help. Having a baby is super expensive and super stressful, but there are some things which can help e.g. consider cloth diapers, encourage breastfeeding to avoid formula costs. I don't know how much support someone like this gets. But I guess not enough.
merpnderp 9y ago
We used a combination of disposable and cloth diapers. Disposables for daycare or when not at home, and cloth for when at home. And this saved us massive massive amounts of money. You buy a couple dozen cloth diapers for $40, and then it is $.50/day for an extra load of laundry. My son still has his cloth diapers as rags he plays with and he's been potty trained for years. But on weekends and evenings, cloth diapers were basically free. And word of warning, they are disgusting to shake into the toilet before throwing into the washing machine with a cap of bleach, but you get over that.
mcv 9y ago
When we had our first kid, we scoured the shops looking for good deals on diapers. Turns out there's a mailinglist you can subscribe to which alerts young parents when a shop in the vicinity has a sale on diapers. Buying them in bulk at the right time can save a lot of money. By the time we had our second child, we didn't care. We buy diapers without thinking about it now. The stress of worrying about this is a bigger cost for us now than the money we pay. Friends used cloth diapers for environmental reasons. Hell of a lot of work, and I have no idea what they cost. Old-fashioned cloth diapers are cheap, but messy.
- yellowstuff 9y ago
  It's not obviously true that cloth diapers are better for the environment. EG: https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=56347 https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?artic...
Simulacra 9y ago
My husband and I are gearing up for our first pregnancy. We're at the point in our careers for we know we can actually afford this. That said, we are really liking the idea of washable diapers. I'm surprised this hasn't caught on. Instead of more diapers, what if the state paid for a service to collect and wash those?
- Keyframe 9y ago
  You do realise that people, before disposable diapers, did just that?
  - scient 9y ago
    Coming from a former Soviet state, we did not have disposable diapers when me and my siblings were growing up. Washable diapers were the only option, and it was horrible. Both for the kids as well as the parents having to wash them all the time. Im actually amazed that there are people today who think this is a good idea and want to go back to it. Seriously what?
    - Keyframe 9y ago
      I remember old giant cooking pots where people would 'cook' those and then dry them later on.
- matheweis 9y ago
  A big part of the reason this isn’t a thing right now is because modern water-saving eco-friendly washers are simply not capable of washing diapers. This is further compounded by the fact that modern laundry detergent is phosphate free. Basically, the average person no longer has access to the necessary equipment to properly do it. If you are well off, you may be able to pay a diaper service with commercial equipment to do the washing for you. We had a relative cover this for our third child, and I can attest that it works out quite nicely.
- manitoo 9y ago
  Not the state, but major cities each have several good cloth-diaper-as-a-service (CDAAS?) companies. You pay a subscription fee and exchange dirty diapers for fresh ones every week. Makes the whole process convenient as using disposables.
howard941 9y ago
This article was a really good read. The woman featured in it celebrates finding a job in Pinellas Park but sadly she lives in Tampa and is about to experience another ill afflicting our piece of paradise: It's about an hour and a half by >= two buses from Tampa to Pinellas Park. That problem will still be around when the diapers are rotting the landfill and the kid's in school. Being poor in Florida is hell. Without a car it's hell^2.
ttul 9y ago
This is more a story about, “Why is social assistance so horrid in the US that poor parents can’t even afford diapers”
jaaames 9y ago
Autonomous demand.
randyrand 9y ago
Diapers are not a necessity. Washable cloth is more than fine, just more work and less convenient.
- sageabilly 9y ago
  Can't wash them in laundromats that don't allow them, and you have to have the money for the initial purchase plus the time to do the laundry. Plus you cannot use cloth diapers at daycare.
randyrand 9y ago
I wish the author could answer the question without a tangential "human-interest" piece. tldr?
kwhitefoot 9y ago
I'm pretty sure I never spent that much on any of my three sons. Here in Norway (you know, everyone's favourite "Oh my god it's so expensive" country) you can get one nappy/diaper/bleie for less than NOK 1, say about ten cents US. Even at 12 a day that's only USD 438. And 12 a day is ridiculous.
wnevets 9y ago
>In the United States, the average diaper sells for about 25 cents. Really? I'm currently paying 8 cents a diaper from Aldi.
- kemayo 9y ago
  The word "average" suggests that you buying a much cheaper diaper from a budget retailer is not at all incompatible with this figure.
  - wnevets 9y ago
    Its an article about how expensive diapers are and the plight it causes to those with low income. Why are we talking about anything BUT a much cheaper diaper from a budget retailer?
ConceptJunkie 9y ago
I have 4 kids, the youngest being 18, and like many people said, 12 a day is way too high, except for a newborn. Disposable diapers are indeed expensive, but I've heard that the environmental effects of cloth diapers are comparable. Fortunately, it's a problem that is long, long behind me. One thing I do remember is that nothing makes a baby more willing to take a big dump or even a pee than putting on a fresh, clean diaper.
syndacks 9y ago
Why is sunscreen so expensive?
esaym 9y ago
I always take it personally when people complain about diaper costs. The fact is 30 years ago, most kids were out of diapers by the age of 2 [0] and nothing is stopping you from using reusable products just like people had to do 30 years ago. The shear unpleasantness of non-disposable diapers is what pushed people to start training their kids at age one. But now the "convenience" of throw away diapers leads modern parents to leave their kids in them until they are over the ago of 4 (disgusting), and complaining about the price the whole way. And here in Texas, anyone that doesn't make over $40k a year automatically qualifies them for the "WIC" program which means they get their diapers free for how ever long they want. And yes I am a parent, and was somewhat lazy as my kids were not out of diapers until right at the age of 3 but all of our friends still didn't even try until their kids were 4. Heck I can remember being 4 years old and running around my grandparents farm and popping a squat right out in the open field and burying it just like the barn cats around there. I almost find it child abuse to allow your kid to be so unconscious about their bodies that they have no problem crapping on themselves when in other cultures 4 year olds are cutting up fruit with machetes (personally seen in a small village, Africa). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_training#History_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_training#History_in_the... [1] http://dshs.texas.gov/wichd/ http://dshs.texas.gov/wichd/
- jakobegger 9y ago
  The article followed a mother of a newborn who was struggling to make ends meet, not a four year old.
- eli 9y ago
  WIC doesn't cover diapers.
- balls187 9y ago
  > I always take it personally when people complain about diaper costs. Why? How does this impact you in the slightest? Being a parent is hard enough of a job already without randos on the internet being judgemental.
- parrellel 9y ago
  Disposable diapers are required by, as far as I've been able to tell, all daycares, so if you're a working parent that "convenience" is in fact a functional necessity. I'll agree that the later and later potty training is utterly disgusting though.
pnathan 9y ago
They are expensive because they haven't hit the price points which induce demand pressure downward. That said, the thread holding this narrative together is the terrible welfare system in the United States. I see absolutely zero reason why the 0-3 y/o in poverty shouldn't qualify for free diapers from the local welfare offices, no questions asked. n.b., cloth diapers are a fair bit of work, and a substantial investment early on.
- balls187 9y ago
  > I see absolutely zero reason why the 0-3 y/o in poverty shouldn't qualify for free diapers from the local welfare offices I'll give you one reason: a large chunk of the voting population/tax base doesn't want to pay for it. > no questions asked. I understand your sentiment, but as soon as that sort of policy is implemented, unscrupulous individuals will abuse the system.
  - pnathan 9y ago
    > unscrupulous individuals will abuse the system. Welfare fraud isn't that prevalent, and adequate checks on gratuitous abuse are not exactly difficult to implement. For the people who would rather see newborns have health issues than pay taxes, I frankly find their morals odious and their foresight lacking.
    - balls187 9y ago
      The point being there are checks. "No questions asked" implied no checks. > For the people who would rather see newborns have health issues than pay taxes, I frankly find their morals odious and their foresight lacking. The article referenced a black, un-wed, young mother stuggling to pay for diapers. That portrayal of poor minorities is what the anti-welfare state sees when fighting for less taxes. The money isn't going to people who are struggling like they might be; the money is going to minorities who aren't willing to work hard. Said more plainly, the health and wellbeing of black and brown babies are worth less to (some|many) Americans than white ones.
ajlai 9y ago
I don't understand the argument that generic diapers "don't last as long." Every diaper lasts until it's soiled; it's not like the generic brands absorb one poop but you keep the "better quality" diapers around for three poops, as though they were paper towels. The only reason I can think of that they wouldn't "last as long" is if you have defective diapers that you have to toss before using (only happened to me once or twice in 2+ years of using Target/Walmart brand diapers, hardly significant). There are other reasons to buy more expensive brands (fewer blowouts, less diaper rash, odor containment, sensitivity to materials, who knows depending on the baby) but I don't see why usage volume is one of them.
- giarc 9y ago
  >Every diaper lasts until it's soiled; But some diapers can handle multiple pee's before they need changing. It's not just about the poops.
virusduck 9y ago
There are organizations that help out with diapers in the US. Some notable: https://greaterdcdiaperbank.org https://greaterdcdiaperbank.org http://nationaldiaperbanknetwork.org/ http://nationaldiaperbanknetwork.org/
Reedx 9y ago
The Engineering Guy has a great video on disposable diaper technology - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYNX8y6lQMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYNX8y6lQMc It's impressive. Not sure how much R&D plays into the costs, but probably more than it may seem.
kwoff 9y ago
Heh, what a day on Hacker News. I read comments about bidets, where people go into intimate detail about how they poop -- and now comments about diapers, where parents go into intimate detail about how their babies poop and pee. :)
NIL8 9y ago
“Given the technology that’s inside them,” consultant Heidi Beatty said, “they are super cheap.” Talk about being full of shit!

258 points by Avshalom 9y ago

My wife and I cloth diapered both of our children. In addition to being radically cheaper it also resolved rashes/eczema in both kids as well as accelerated potty training. There is an 'ick' factor but liners and a toilet sprayer take care of 99% of that.

paulryanrogers 9y ago
Diaper services can also be better for the environment and the wallet.
- beagle3 9y ago
  That depends on your location; my experience in NYC was that diaper services were just a little more expensive than buying small bags of disposable at CVS, and vastly more expensive than ordering bigger bags of disposable at Amazon.
soperj 9y ago
I found with liners it was even better than diapers. No smell because everything goes down the toilet. Mind you, my kids were eating solids before we put them in cloth.
corvallis 9y ago
A lot of people don't live in places with an in-home washer/dryer. They have to go elsewhere in the building for pay laundry or to the laundromat. This makes it logistically and financially nearly impossible to use cloth diapers. Not to mention the substantial up front cost for cloth diapers, which makes them inaccessible for people living paycheck to paycheck. This is an example of how having money allows you to save money.
- mc32 9y ago
  I imagine for those, you could use a washboard in a shower/tub. It's not a huge volume and the "dirt" is not caked in, for the most part, so it should be a fairly easy wash.
- akira2501 9y ago
  When I think about UBI I worry about responsible spending and wonder if just subsidizing common items food, clothing (diapers) and household goods wouldn't be a smarter solution overall. In relation to the case in the article, I wonder if we couldn't subsidize certain items and allow parents to receive a one month supply at low to no cost? Why should we give disadvantaged people $180 a month just to let several middlemen take a cut via the corner drugstore?
  - MereInterest 9y ago
    The main idea behind UBI is that the government doesn't know exactly what each individual needs at any given time, but does know that those things can probably be bought for money. One person might need diapers, another socks, and yet another a car payment to take their child to school. Given money increases flexibility, as opposed to a fixed list of items that may or may not be needed.
  - linkregister 9y ago
    This has been done in the past, e.g. government cheese. It turns out that letting the market deliver necessities based off of demand is far more efficient than the alternative. That would be a government anticipates how much a community will use, what styles of diapers they'll want, etc.
    - zeth___ 9y ago
      [[citation needed]] And I mean a comparison between governments of equally developed nations. That means that you compare the USSR to Brazil and not the USA. Since the difference in HDI between the USSR and Brazil was smaller than that of the USSR to the USA.
    - 9y ago
bgirard 9y ago
Same, at first I wasn't sold on the concept but my wife wanted to try. It's way cheaper and better for environment. Now I don't regret it and find the idea of using 100% disposables silly. We still use one disposable each night because they absorb better or one here and there when we're out. The upfront cost was $150 so that might be an issue for some.
- JackFr 9y ago
  If you didn't have in home access to a washer and dryer (that is, assuming you do) would your opinion change?
  - bgirard 9y ago
    It depends. If I can afford it then I'm likely to exclude any residence that doesn't have a washer and dryer. And if I can't afford it then I'm more like to use cloth diapers because then the savings is significant.
war1025 9y ago
We cloth diaper too (3 kids, a two and a half year old potty trained for about a year now, and 5 month old twins). Personally, I find disposable diapers to be way more disgusting than cloth. With cloth, you rinse it out and the majority of the gross stuff is down the drain. With disposables, you end up with a garbage can literally full of poop. Its like having a mini pit toilet in your house. We have also noticed, like you mentioned, that cloth diapers are easier on the babies' skin and makes potty training significantly easier. For anyone who is reading this and may be interested in cloth diapering: Get some quality covers and then buy a ton of flour sack towels. They make the best inserts. Super absorbent, cheap, and unfolds to a single layer, which means they get cleaner and dry faster.
- dancek 9y ago
  Props for doing that. We tried with our twins, but eventually decided cloth diapers are for people with single kids that aren't burnt out.
  - milesvp 9y ago
    Ugh. Yeah, I regret deeply buying cloth diapers for my twins. The economics looks better for twins, since you only need like 50% more, but the time premium is higher than expected with twins, so it ended up eating into too much prescious downtime. Worse is we couldn't get them to stop drinking the majority of their fluid intake before bed, and the pee at night required us to use absorbant disposables anyways. In the end I'm not sure they were a net positive investment, even ignoring the higher than expected opportunity cost of havings twins.
  - josefresco 9y ago
    "cloth diapers are for people with single kids" Maybe not for twins, but "one kid at-a-time" is more than doable and the second kid is where the real money savings come in.
    - dancek 9y ago
      Yeah, I meant that by single (English is my second language). And of course cloth diapers are probably a good idea for twins too, but I just couldn't handle it. There comes a point where you'll give almost anything to get five minutes of free time every now and then.
craftyguy 9y ago
how does this not contaminate your washer with feces?
- Aloha 9y ago
  Detergent and water gets just about anything clean.. However, you presoak them, and scrape a majority of the feces off into the toilet at change time.
- white-flame 9y ago
  Do you think your washer is somehow not already contaminated with feces, from washing underwear? I read an article a while ago that tested and found substantial fecal residue in typical washing machines, without cloth diapers going through them. Can't find it now among all the cloth diaper related search hits.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    Good point.
  - astura 9y ago
    My grandma always used to wash undies by hand separately and then pour boiling water over them. I found it to be very weird when I was a kid, but she might have been onto something. I would do this if I was living with an immunocompromised person but its probably overkill for a healthy family. It's also suggested you clean the washer every once in a while too. Fecal bacteria is found everywhere it seems, so that's why frequent hand washing (especially before food prep) is important.
- mirimir 9y ago
  You rinse diapers in the toilet before washing them.
stevekemp 9y ago
We're also using cloth diapers, except when travelling (which is pretty rare), but it has had no impact on the childs exzema. (As expected really, half of the rashes are on his arms/torso and completely away from the diaper-end!)
deleted 9y ago
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lnsru 9y ago
We did the same. Putting this thing into cloth removed ‘ick’ factor: https://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/B00E5NN4KQ/ref=mh_s9_acsd_top_b4Kbwkh_c_x_1_w?pf_rd_m=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&pf_rd_s=mobile-hybrid-3&pf_rd_r=RC9EXB7TJKS2TZ5TBBBD&pf_rd_r=RC9EXB7TJKS2TZ5TBBBD&pf_rd_t=30901&pf_rd_p=3e584788-68e7-51f7-859b-a6906949c89d&pf_rd_p=3e584788-68e7-51f7-859b-a6906949c89d&pf_rd_i=3969102031 https://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/B00E5NN4KQ/ref=mh_s9_acsd_top_... It can be washed 2-3 times if nothing serious happened.
collyw 9y ago
Its a whole lot more environmentally friendly as well. And that's something that will probably affect your kids more than you.
dbatten 9y ago
Serious question(s) from a father of 2 under 2... How do you get the cloth diapers clean? Like, really clean so they don't still smell after they've been cleaned? My wife and I were planning on cloth diapering. We bought some high-end cloth diaper and liners and started on our merry way. We found that no matter what we did, our little guy smelled like piss all the time. My wife was washing diapers 2 or 3 times in between wearings, "stripping" them to remove remaining smells, etc., etc. Our water bill went up by literally $50 a month, we were buying all kinds of detergents to try and get the smells to go away, and we had already invested a ton of money actually buying diapers in the first place. Not to mention that my wife was spending all her time washing, re-washing, and folding diapers _and_ our kid still smelled like piss. In our case, disposables were a god-send. The little dude is happy, he doesn't smell, my wife doesn't spend half her day cleaning diapers, and (especially since we buy diapers in bulk on good sales), we've found disposable diapers to actually be far _cheaper_ than what we were paying for water, detergent, startup costs, etc. on cloth. I would never go back, just because of the time savings alone.
- jetcata 9y ago
  You need to soak them in something stronger before washing - something bleach based. Napisan is great for this (and also for any white shirts etc).
- sailfast 9y ago
  Have you tried putting them in the sun? Sunlight does a lot of good on diapers. If you have the option I'd put them on a line outside. As for the other stuff, we used a double-rinse with powdered detergent and things seemed to work pretty well. The time factor was _super_ annoying. Maintenance for cloth diapers is a full-time job sometimes, but it felt good not to add a billion pounds of waste to the landfill. Full disclosure: Now that we travel a lot more, we're pretty much only in disposables.
- chevman 9y ago
  We used cloth diapers on my son (who is now almost 4). Our technique was as follows: -One wash cycle in warm water using no soap. -One wash cycle in hot water using soap. -Dry Every couple weeks we would put white vinegar in the no-soap cycle. This helps cut the smell down. Every couple months we would put a small amount of bleach in the no-soap cycle. Any more frequent than this and we found the diapers then irritated our son's skin. If I had to do it all over again, not sure how I would choose. As you call out, there are additional costs to the cloth diaper approach (water, detergent, etc) that add up, plus it takes quite a bit of time. One advantage that we found is that our son, and other folks we know who used cloth diapers, all had kids who ended up potty training sooner (anywhere from a couple months to 6+ months earlier) than kids wearing disposables.
castlecrasher2 9y ago
Where did you get cheap cloth diapers? I haven't looked too much into it but some women in my family recommended against it because they said cloth diapers are expensive.
balls187 9y ago
We travel a lot with our son. No way we were gonna do that with cloth diapers.

zik 9y ago

I feel like this article was an extended ad for Huggies. Particularly with the happy ending being "Tonight, she was bringing home Huggies".

nielsbot 9y ago
advertorial? I mean, it happens all the time, right? e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/weekinreview/13goodman.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/weekinreview/13goodman.ht... (although that article is from 7 years ago...) Sorry, I read more articles about this recently... blogs doing paid mentioning/sponsorships and not disclosing it.
- nielsbot 9y ago
  I meant to say, read more articles about this more recently, but don't remember where and a very quick Google search didn't return anything that seemed familiar..
LitFan 9y ago
You're absolutely right. There was only one mention of cloth diapers anywhere in here, and it was quickly dismissed by "they are difficult to clean without a machine". Nothing about how cost effective they can be, and then we go right back to learning about how huggies are better than generics.
- fokinsean 9y ago
  Yup the South Park episode "Truth and Advertising" is become more and more true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Advertising

projektir 9y ago

Whenever something like this comes up, my first question is always: "OK, how did we do this before diapers were invented, and what happened to that?"

rdtsc 9y ago
> OK, how did we do this before diapers were invented, and what happened to that?" My Mom always mentions it as well. She used a stack of cloth diapers, then hand washed them, dried them and even ironed them. It was a pretty labor and time intensive process. She says we are lucky to be able to get a box of diapers from Amazon, use them, throw them in a diaper pail and close the lid and not have to worry about it.
- blackn1ght 9y ago
  She didn't need to iron them though. Now you just chuck them in the washing machine and then line dry them or put them on a low heat in the dryer. The sheer amount of nappies that were in our outdoor bin kinda made us realise that we needed to change to cloth.
  - rdtsc 9y ago
    She didn't but she liked everything to be neat, clean and organized. But for practical purposes agree, it's not needed.
Nition 9y ago
Cloth diapers are still around, and better and easier than they were then.
flukus 9y ago
It's a good question, but often the answer is "we had a stay at home mum that had time for all this stuff", which I think could be the answer here (I don't know if cloth diapers are time consuming or not). Older solutions might be perfectly viable but no longer practical because of cultural changes.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Hermel 9y ago

Even 50 cent diapers are less expensive than the time it costs you to change them. So I don't think they qualify as "so expensive".

steve918 9y ago
Maybe you should have read the article. Maybe not expensive for a software developer making 6 figures a year, but that's not most people. For people living near poverty levels $1k a year is a lot of money.
- j4kp07 9y ago
  > $1k a year This person has never had kids.
dingaling 9y ago
I'll do the maths for the UK since I have numbers. 50 cents is about 0.70 GBP UK minimum wage is 7.83 GBP per hour pre-tax. So one nappy at that rate is 5.5 minutes of work. That's considerably longer than the time it takes to remove and clean.
- kemiller 9y ago
  It’s 0.35 GBP.
senorjazz 9y ago
The environmental factor is also pretty huge. Store a weeks worth of disposables separate and the amount of landfill over the course nappy period of a baby is insane!

ythn 9y ago

> Diapering a child now takes about $1,000 a year for an average product. That doesn't seem right. Are these people buying the smallest quantities possible? You can buy ~300 diapers for $30 on amazon. That's only $360 /year.

atwebb 9y ago
No source but I believe that's a big issue. If you don't have money, you can't buy at scale (or store/transport it). Though here it isn't that much (relatively) like say buying bulk beef vs store bought.
craftyguy 9y ago
folks living paycheck to paycheck cannot afford big upfront costs like this. even if it saves them money in the long term. too bad personal finance isn't a thing taught in public schools.
- Swizec 9y ago
  Even if you know you’re losing money, if you can’t afford to invest you can’t invest.
- mantas 9y ago
  $30 is big upfront costs? Seriously? Of course, that may be a bigger sum in 3rd world countries. But they don't have Amazon there at all and probably don't use diapers either.
  - j4kp07 9y ago
    Don't you get it? Anecdotes and hypotheticals trump logic and common sense.
    - zbentley 9y ago
      How about statistics instead of anecdotes? This article is pretty well sourced, and, while not all of the math checks out, the preponderance of evidence seems to point towards "yes, that is a regular choice that poor people in the US make": http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051702053.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...

aaron695 9y ago

> Cloth diapers aren’t always an option. And here lies the total and utter bullshit. They ARE an option. At an alleged $1000 a year, a payback scheme on a cheap washing machine would allow cloth and ease the work load on the mother. The total and utter arrogance people have with disposable diapers blows me away. There are cases you can make up in your head of a single mother working two jobs and still not being able to get a loan for a cheap washing machine / not allowed in the apartment, but this is NOT what this article is talking. If you want more time watching GoT feel free to use disposable diapers, but don't bullshit there are no other cheaper options. In other funny stuff there is quite a market for upscale reusable diapers embroidered etc that cost $100's each.

scandox 9y ago

Ireland 5 nappies a day x 365 days = 1825 nappies / 30 per pack = 61 packs x euro 2.99 [1] = euro 182.39 per annum Which sounds about right to me. Where are they getting a $1000 from? [1] https://www.aldi.ie/extra-large-nappies-size-6/p/059624005863400 https://www.aldi.ie/extra-large-nappies-size-6/p/05962400586...

DonRico 9y ago
Well in smaller EU countries the prices tend to be little bit higher due to quantities but year that 1000$ doesn't add up. ATM couldn't find anything under 0.18€/piece in Estonia. https://www.prismamarket.ee/products/search/teipm%C3%A4he https://www.prismamarket.ee/products/search/teipm%C3%A4he
NiekvdMaas 9y ago
Same for Netherlands. The month-box of 210 huggies costs 34 euro, so you get a number around 300 euro/year. If you buy from stores with discount, you'll get a price of around 11 cents per nappy: https://www.luierinfo.nl/aanbiedingen/pampers/premium-protection/1 https://www.luierinfo.nl/aanbiedingen/pampers/premium-protec...
sampleinajar 9y ago
They do their math in the article. "In the United States, the average diaper sells for about 25 cents. The quarters add up quickly. Newborns need as many as 12 changes a day. That’s $21 per week, or $84 per month. Bigger kids need fewer, but their diapers are more expensive." It's a worst case calculation biased towards newborns, which they don't remain all year, obviously. For me, it averaged more like $800 - $400 a year. Also, 2.99 a pack is insane for me as an American. That would go for about $8-$10 USD, depending on size.

duncan_bayne 9y ago

I'd probably use cloth nappies if I were a stay-at-home dad. As it stands, I'd much rather put some of the money I'm earning towards the convenience of disposables.

djrogers 9y ago

There are a couple of ‘facts’ listed here that don’t line up with my current reality and very recent knowledge (3 kids, most recent is 18mo). First off, 12 changes a day is a huge outlier - even for a newborn. 8 would be a more reasonable number, and it drops down to the 4-6 range in the first year, and by now we’re at 3 if we don’t go swimming. Second item that sounds waaay off is $1000/yr for diapers. Again, that has to be an outlier based on the worst possible set of assumptions. A box of 168 diapers lasts about a month and costs ~$40. That doesn’t add up... And finally, many of the charities I work with will hand out diapers or cards for free diapers to anyone who asks. If you’re really in a bind, call a local church, women’s shelter, or commissary! We really do want to help, but we have to know you need it.

mattbee 9y ago
I think you missed the part of the article where they talked about never having enough cash to buy in bulk, instead buying at 2 or 3x the unit cost in 5s and 10s from the corner shop.
- tw04 9y ago
  When bulk is $40, you're just making some really, really poor life decisions if you both have a kid, and can't find a way to save that much money in a 30 day window.
  - egypturnash 9y ago
    Condoms break, and it’s pretty damn hard to have an abortion if the only place you can get it done is halfway across the state.
    - briandear 9y ago
      Adoption? And, there are abortion clinics in Tampa Bay, where this story took place.
      - 9y ago

mythas 9y ago

I have an 8 month old and just the other day was thinking how are they able to make these things so cheaply? Seriously for 80 cents a day I can avoid the nightmare of cloth diapers (sorry planet). All the estimates in the post are soooo far off the mark. They are done with the cost of premium diapers for 4 year olds at the rate of use of a sub 2 month old. I’d say 350 bucks Canadian a year if I extrapolate out our costs to complete our kids first year.

triangleman 9y ago
The planet will be fine. Maybe better off, in fact--do you have any idea how much water it takes to wash these things?
- 0xcafecafe 9y ago
  What about the amount of water it takes to manufacture disposable diapers?
giarc 9y ago
$350 a year is about what I pay. I have diapers arrive each month on Amazon Subscribe and Save. The price per box averages about $30 and we get 1/month. Every so often we might need to buy an additional box if we are running low.

ringe 9y ago

"Diapers are sold at much lower prices in Norway than in the rest of Europe. The large price difference has led to smuggling of diapers, mainly to Eastern-European countries. The diaper smuggler gain both from the price difference and by evading taxes on the trade" https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/57685 https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/57685

maaaats 9y ago
I was also thinking about that. Normally we do everything we can to buy stuff from abroad, but for diapers even low cost countries buy here. Kinda absurd.

chrissnell 9y ago

This article is so frustrating. The helplessness and dependence are just sad. Cloth diapers cost less than $1.50 each in a 10-pack. If you are poor enough, you can wash them in a bucket with bar soap. That's what virtually everyone did before washers were invented. I'm saddened that this girl didn't figure this out. I know first-hand, when you're poor and desperate, you figure shit out. Unless, of course, you have a system that encourages dependence on public assistance and actually ends up hurting a woman's self-sufficiency and puts her little boy at a high risk of being helpless and dependent, too. I want to help them, but the answer isn't more subsidies. I want to see her get that better job, even if it means losing the assistance. I want to see Dad stay in the home because that's so critical for developing emotional control in young adults. I want their son to grow up scrappy and industrious, with a good sense of how to get by even things are tough because tough times happen for everyone. I don't blame this woman. I'm not pissed at her. I'm pissed, however, at the politicians who have created this dependency web to trap people like this woman and ensure that there will always be a need for do-gooder politicians.

Nition 9y ago
I'd also add: - If you'd really prefer modern style cloth diapers (prefold, pocket etc) instead of the cheap old-school flat diapers, often you can buy second-hand ones that are hardly used (or not used at all!). - If you have any more children, your cost for buying diapers is now $0 because you already have them.
- hashgowda 9y ago
  Please post a link to the modern style diapers...
  - sleet 9y ago
    Just the first one that came up, I'm sure there are cheaper options. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/free-shipping-100-cotton-waterproof-sleeve-cloth-diaper-with-cotton-inner-one-size-baby-reusable-diaper/32674726427.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/free-shipping-100-cotton-wat...

radicalbyte 9y ago

I saw 0 difference between pampers and supermarket branded nappies. Only the piss strip from pampers is handy for the first two months. However marketing is powerful and most people are emotionally driven not analytically driven. So we get this situation. Medical has the same problem.

dmitriid 9y ago

Recently I'm becoming more and more repulsed by the "everyday life is shit in the US" news. 1 in 3 families in the US cannot afford diapers? A full one third of families? The richest country in the world, indeed.

scandox 9y ago

To everyone talking about cloth nappies: you're insane. You do it for 3 years. Then do it for another 3 years. Then talk. They are a fecking nightmare to manage.

hycaria 9y ago
Two solutions : Shorten the span (3 years sure is a lot, especially when reading other testimonies here). Don't repeat.
senorjazz 9y ago
3 kids, all been in cloth / reusable nappies. We were not militant strict. Used dispoable for night due to extra absorption. But day time use, pretty much only reusable. Anecdotal of course, but they all were toilet trained before other kids. Whether that is because it is more noticeable the nappy is wet and uncomfortable or other factors (wife was home all the time, kids in a nursery from a young age all day seemed to lag further behind). But I think the cloth nappies definitely played a part.
- ggg9990 9y ago
  “Wife was home all the time” is the key here and a luxury not available to all.
  - giarc 9y ago
    Cloth diapers are expensive. My wife and I bought them and tried them for about a week before giving up and selling our stock. So for one there is a large upfront cost, and if parents can get over that hurdle, there is also the need to find a daycare that will 1. accept a child in cloth diapers and 2. be reliable enough to send back your cloth diaper investment.

hennsen 9y ago

„Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark have poured billions of dollars into research and development“ Can that be true? Really Billions? Or just a story to justify a pricing strategy to maximize profits with those who can pay it leaving others aside?

ggg9990 9y ago
Not per year, but in total over the last 100 years is believable.

mixmastamyk 9y ago

Hmm, not one commenter here in 120+ addressed the point of the article, namely why don't companies make cheaper diapers, instead of only ratcheting up the high tech? Obviously it's more profitable, but are there other factors?

NoGravitas 9y ago
There doesn't need to be any factor other than "it's more profitable", though. The higher tech is there to produce higher margins.

columb 9y ago

In UK nappies are ultra cheap. My Wife uses Lidl's nappies but Aldi's are equally good (if not the same!). They cost around 5-7 pence each. Can't really exactly remember because they are so cheap. Pampers are more expensive but by much.

PMan74 9y ago
ALDI Junior Nappies Size 5 (40) €2.99 - €7.5c each Pampers Premium Size 5 (35) - €8.99 - €25.5 each Bigger packs are cheaper per nappy. If you can wait for offers you usually can get the Pampers much cheaper e.g. right now 2 x 72 pack for €23, 16c per nappy. We started off with Pampers and moved to ALDI, never looked back. But all in all at 4 nappies a day you'd just break €110 a year with ALDI.
columb 9y ago
*by not much. Sorry, 17,5 flight is taking it's toll.
lebski88 9y ago
Yes I noticed this too: > In the United States, the average diaper sells for about 25 cents That's so much more expensive than here. Looking at the pictures you can get the same brands and nappies for half the price here. In the decent sized packs from amazon pampers are only a touch more expensive but yeah the Lidl ones are just as good as far as I can see. We mostly used pampers because they are cheap with a subscription but have used Lidl ones fairly often. Shame we're not very close to a Lidl store (well we are, but traffic).
- mcv 9y ago
  I just checked Dutch prices: googled and took the first link for diapers for newborns: 52 diapers for €7, or €5 if you buy in bulk. So that's 10-13 cents for random big chain diapers of a good brand. Seems to be a typical price. At another chain, I get the same prices for another brand. Looking for the biggest A brand, I find 72 diapers for €15, which is a bit more expensive, but still less than 25 cents (though eurocents are worth a bit more than dollar cents, of course).
9y ago

Buetol 9y ago

The Wikipedia article is very informative also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaper From Pampers making big sizes for the child to be dependant until the age of 5, to skin irritation because of diapers. My guess. You just can't expect the same quality of care when people get poorer and poorer in general.

ToFab123 9y ago

Because you need them and do not really have any other choice. The same reason that a razor are so expensive, and toothbrushes, and female products, and shampoo and ... you get the drift?

soVeryTired 9y ago

Looks like a whole comment thread got deleted because it got too political. I understand that political discussion isn't right for HN, but I don't approve of comments disappearing silently. It would be nice to see a note from the moderators explaining that that's what happened.

DanBC 9y ago
In your profile there's an option called "showDead" which you can toggle to show comments that have been killed. Comments can be killed by mods, but I think the vast majority are killed by user flags not moderator action. The karma threshold to flag a comment is small, about 50. TO flag a comment you click the timestamp of the comment, which will take you to a page where the flag option appears. The karma threshold to downvote a comment is higher. I think it's about 500 or 750 or so.
- soVeryTired 9y ago
  Thanks for the info
kolpa 9y ago
When the mods/admins intervene, they usually "detach and mark off-topic" (move to bottom of page), not delete. Users flag posts to hide them.

spaceandshit 9y ago

Just to provide some perspective, I have worked on the structural analysis (FEA) of diapers for P&G, when I was working at an engineering consulting firm. As the article states, these companies pour millions into R&D, and for me that included running simulations to determine if the diaper's material properties were appropriate. To do this, I was running simulations of a diaper being wrapped onto a baby, the baby walking, and then pooping. The pressure, forces, stresses on the diaper were calculated and we drew conclusions based on these simulations to improve the quality. When I was working there, I also worked on new razors, loofahs, bottles, etc.

Game_Ender 9y ago
As a parent thank you! It is amazing the things a diaper managed to neatly contain. I always imagined there was a group dedicated to design things the elastic catch on the edge of the diaper.

ada1981 9y ago

I was expecting to see people brainstorming technical solutions... Anyone interested in brainstorming some solutions to this? What do the component parts cost of the best diaper? Are there ways to bring those costs down by an order of magnitude? How about an X Prize for Diaper Design? What questions should be asked around this problem? I'd be up for hosting a video virtual brainstorm of this topic if anyone is interested, let me know.

GirlsCanCode 9y ago

I change my cat's litter box once a week, and scoop it out twice a day.

jetcata 9y ago

Does anyone still use cloth diapers these days? They’re reusable and produce so much less waste.

emddudley 9y ago
Yes
emddudley 9y ago
Yes, my family did a few years ago. I would guess that we used around 80% fewer disposable diapers... disposables are still useful when traveling and other miscellaneous situations.

quantumhobbit 9y ago

Disposable Diapers are surprisingly high tech, or at least well engineered. See: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xYNX8y6lQMc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xYNX8y6lQMc

JustSomeNobody 9y ago

> Safety net programs are little help. Only one form of public assistance can be spent on diapers, and in Florida the average benefit hasn’t increased in more than two decades. Why do we hate the poor so much?

planetjones 9y ago

It would appear that a large part of the problem is the person's finances are in such bad order, they cannot afford to buy the diapers in bulk. Could the local church or community organisation not buy the nappies in the bulk and then sell them at the lowest item price possible ? When in such poverty (and potentially from a less educated background) I know finding solutions is difficult. But this is where community should help. Having a baby is super expensive and super stressful, but there are some things which can help e.g. consider cloth diapers, encourage breastfeeding to avoid formula costs. I don't know how much support someone like this gets. But I guess not enough.

merpnderp 9y ago

We used a combination of disposable and cloth diapers. Disposables for daycare or when not at home, and cloth for when at home. And this saved us massive massive amounts of money. You buy a couple dozen cloth diapers for $40, and then it is $.50/day for an extra load of laundry. My son still has his cloth diapers as rags he plays with and he's been potty trained for years. But on weekends and evenings, cloth diapers were basically free. And word of warning, they are disgusting to shake into the toilet before throwing into the washing machine with a cap of bleach, but you get over that.

mcv 9y ago

When we had our first kid, we scoured the shops looking for good deals on diapers. Turns out there's a mailinglist you can subscribe to which alerts young parents when a shop in the vicinity has a sale on diapers. Buying them in bulk at the right time can save a lot of money. By the time we had our second child, we didn't care. We buy diapers without thinking about it now. The stress of worrying about this is a bigger cost for us now than the money we pay. Friends used cloth diapers for environmental reasons. Hell of a lot of work, and I have no idea what they cost. Old-fashioned cloth diapers are cheap, but messy.

yellowstuff 9y ago
It's not obviously true that cloth diapers are better for the environment. EG: https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=56347 https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?artic...

Simulacra 9y ago

My husband and I are gearing up for our first pregnancy. We're at the point in our careers for we know we can actually afford this. That said, we are really liking the idea of washable diapers. I'm surprised this hasn't caught on. Instead of more diapers, what if the state paid for a service to collect and wash those?

Keyframe 9y ago
You do realise that people, before disposable diapers, did just that?
- scient 9y ago
  Coming from a former Soviet state, we did not have disposable diapers when me and my siblings were growing up. Washable diapers were the only option, and it was horrible. Both for the kids as well as the parents having to wash them all the time. Im actually amazed that there are people today who think this is a good idea and want to go back to it. Seriously what?
  - Keyframe 9y ago
    I remember old giant cooking pots where people would 'cook' those and then dry them later on.
matheweis 9y ago
A big part of the reason this isn’t a thing right now is because modern water-saving eco-friendly washers are simply not capable of washing diapers. This is further compounded by the fact that modern laundry detergent is phosphate free. Basically, the average person no longer has access to the necessary equipment to properly do it. If you are well off, you may be able to pay a diaper service with commercial equipment to do the washing for you. We had a relative cover this for our third child, and I can attest that it works out quite nicely.
manitoo 9y ago
Not the state, but major cities each have several good cloth-diaper-as-a-service (CDAAS?) companies. You pay a subscription fee and exchange dirty diapers for fresh ones every week. Makes the whole process convenient as using disposables.

howard941 9y ago

This article was a really good read. The woman featured in it celebrates finding a job in Pinellas Park but sadly she lives in Tampa and is about to experience another ill afflicting our piece of paradise: It's about an hour and a half by >= two buses from Tampa to Pinellas Park. That problem will still be around when the diapers are rotting the landfill and the kid's in school. Being poor in Florida is hell. Without a car it's hell^2.

ttul 9y ago

This is more a story about, “Why is social assistance so horrid in the US that poor parents can’t even afford diapers”

jaaames 9y ago

Autonomous demand.

randyrand 9y ago

Diapers are not a necessity. Washable cloth is more than fine, just more work and less convenient.

sageabilly 9y ago
Can't wash them in laundromats that don't allow them, and you have to have the money for the initial purchase plus the time to do the laundry. Plus you cannot use cloth diapers at daycare.

randyrand 9y ago

I wish the author could answer the question without a tangential "human-interest" piece. tldr?

kwhitefoot 9y ago

I'm pretty sure I never spent that much on any of my three sons. Here in Norway (you know, everyone's favourite "Oh my god it's so expensive" country) you can get one nappy/diaper/bleie for less than NOK 1, say about ten cents US. Even at 12 a day that's only USD 438. And 12 a day is ridiculous.

wnevets 9y ago

>In the United States, the average diaper sells for about 25 cents. Really? I'm currently paying 8 cents a diaper from Aldi.

kemayo 9y ago
The word "average" suggests that you buying a much cheaper diaper from a budget retailer is not at all incompatible with this figure.
- wnevets 9y ago
  Its an article about how expensive diapers are and the plight it causes to those with low income. Why are we talking about anything BUT a much cheaper diaper from a budget retailer?

ConceptJunkie 9y ago

I have 4 kids, the youngest being 18, and like many people said, 12 a day is way too high, except for a newborn. Disposable diapers are indeed expensive, but I've heard that the environmental effects of cloth diapers are comparable. Fortunately, it's a problem that is long, long behind me. One thing I do remember is that nothing makes a baby more willing to take a big dump or even a pee than putting on a fresh, clean diaper.

syndacks 9y ago

Why is sunscreen so expensive?

esaym 9y ago

I always take it personally when people complain about diaper costs. The fact is 30 years ago, most kids were out of diapers by the age of 2 [0] and nothing is stopping you from using reusable products just like people had to do 30 years ago. The shear unpleasantness of non-disposable diapers is what pushed people to start training their kids at age one. But now the "convenience" of throw away diapers leads modern parents to leave their kids in them until they are over the ago of 4 (disgusting), and complaining about the price the whole way. And here in Texas, anyone that doesn't make over $40k a year automatically qualifies them for the "WIC" program which means they get their diapers free for how ever long they want. And yes I am a parent, and was somewhat lazy as my kids were not out of diapers until right at the age of 3 but all of our friends still didn't even try until their kids were 4. Heck I can remember being 4 years old and running around my grandparents farm and popping a squat right out in the open field and burying it just like the barn cats around there. I almost find it child abuse to allow your kid to be so unconscious about their bodies that they have no problem crapping on themselves when in other cultures 4 year olds are cutting up fruit with machetes (personally seen in a small village, Africa). [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_training#History_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_training#History_in_the... [1] http://dshs.texas.gov/wichd/ http://dshs.texas.gov/wichd/

jakobegger 9y ago
The article followed a mother of a newborn who was struggling to make ends meet, not a four year old.
eli 9y ago
WIC doesn't cover diapers.
balls187 9y ago
> I always take it personally when people complain about diaper costs. Why? How does this impact you in the slightest? Being a parent is hard enough of a job already without randos on the internet being judgemental.
parrellel 9y ago
Disposable diapers are required by, as far as I've been able to tell, all daycares, so if you're a working parent that "convenience" is in fact a functional necessity. I'll agree that the later and later potty training is utterly disgusting though.

pnathan 9y ago

They are expensive because they haven't hit the price points which induce demand pressure downward. That said, the thread holding this narrative together is the terrible welfare system in the United States. I see absolutely zero reason why the 0-3 y/o in poverty shouldn't qualify for free diapers from the local welfare offices, no questions asked. n.b., cloth diapers are a fair bit of work, and a substantial investment early on.

balls187 9y ago
> I see absolutely zero reason why the 0-3 y/o in poverty shouldn't qualify for free diapers from the local welfare offices I'll give you one reason: a large chunk of the voting population/tax base doesn't want to pay for it. > no questions asked. I understand your sentiment, but as soon as that sort of policy is implemented, unscrupulous individuals will abuse the system.
- pnathan 9y ago
  > unscrupulous individuals will abuse the system. Welfare fraud isn't that prevalent, and adequate checks on gratuitous abuse are not exactly difficult to implement. For the people who would rather see newborns have health issues than pay taxes, I frankly find their morals odious and their foresight lacking.
  - balls187 9y ago
    The point being there are checks. "No questions asked" implied no checks. > For the people who would rather see newborns have health issues than pay taxes, I frankly find their morals odious and their foresight lacking. The article referenced a black, un-wed, young mother stuggling to pay for diapers. That portrayal of poor minorities is what the anti-welfare state sees when fighting for less taxes. The money isn't going to people who are struggling like they might be; the money is going to minorities who aren't willing to work hard. Said more plainly, the health and wellbeing of black and brown babies are worth less to (some|many) Americans than white ones.

ajlai 9y ago

I don't understand the argument that generic diapers "don't last as long." Every diaper lasts until it's soiled; it's not like the generic brands absorb one poop but you keep the "better quality" diapers around for three poops, as though they were paper towels. The only reason I can think of that they wouldn't "last as long" is if you have defective diapers that you have to toss before using (only happened to me once or twice in 2+ years of using Target/Walmart brand diapers, hardly significant). There are other reasons to buy more expensive brands (fewer blowouts, less diaper rash, odor containment, sensitivity to materials, who knows depending on the baby) but I don't see why usage volume is one of them.

giarc 9y ago
>Every diaper lasts until it's soiled; But some diapers can handle multiple pee's before they need changing. It's not just about the poops.

virusduck 9y ago

There are organizations that help out with diapers in the US. Some notable: https://greaterdcdiaperbank.org https://greaterdcdiaperbank.org http://nationaldiaperbanknetwork.org/ http://nationaldiaperbanknetwork.org/

Reedx 9y ago

The Engineering Guy has a great video on disposable diaper technology - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYNX8y6lQMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYNX8y6lQMc It's impressive. Not sure how much R&D plays into the costs, but probably more than it may seem.

kwoff 9y ago

Heh, what a day on Hacker News. I read comments about bidets, where people go into intimate detail about how they poop -- and now comments about diapers, where parents go into intimate detail about how their babies poop and pee. :)

NIL8 9y ago

“Given the technology that’s inside them,” consultant Heidi Beatty said, “they are super cheap.” Talk about being full of shit!