Giving Compass' Take:
- Chabeli Carrazana reports on how nonprofit diaper banks such as Diaper Dollars are giving families the funds they need to purchase diapers.
- How can donors and funders support families and babies in need of diapers, which has been found to be a greater contributor to postpartum depression than food insecurity and housing instability?
- Learn more about key issues in child care and how you can help.
- Search our Guide to Good for nonprofits focused on child care in your area.
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In America, diapers have long been treated as a luxury good rather than a necessity. Half of families with young kids struggle to afford all the diapers they need, demonstrating the importance of nonprofit diaper banks. A quarter of families miss work as a result, often because they don’t have enough diapers to send with their children to child care.
It’s a largely invisible issue with enormous consequences for the health of parents and children. Studies have found that diaper need is a greater contributor to postpartum depression than food insecurity and housing instability. And when parents don’t have enough diapers, they make do with sanitary pads, rags or other materials. Some report having to leave their children in soiled diapers for extended periods, raising the risk for urinary tract infections and diaper rash.
So Amy Kadens, who has worked in the diaper space for nearly 15 years, wondered: What if diapers were free for the parents who need them most? For decades, the United States has not had a good answer. So she came up with her own.
Nonprofit diaper banks started popping up across the nation in 2011, collecting donations and dispersing diapers to families through a complex network of local partnerships. They are one of the few lifelines for parents.
Kadens, who co-founded a nonprofit that provides diapers called Share our Spare in 2011, knew that nonprofit diaper banks often operate with limited staff and resources, and operationally can only address a small percentage of a massive need. Without more government support, they can only get at a slice of the problem.
Federal assistance programs that help low-income families, such as food stamps and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), have never allowed families to use those funds to purchase diapers.
“Diaper banks are doing heroic work with very little. I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel,” Kadens said. But, “I wanted to continue to sink my teeth into this.”
Read the full article about diaper banks by Chabeli Carrazana at The 19th.