Hospitals Ready for a Change Go to Cloth Diapers
In the diaper debate between those who favor disposables and those of the cloth persuasion, chalk up one for cloth.
During the past few months, several hospitals in Southern California have decided to dump disposable diapers for the cloth variety, according to the few diaper services that have a virtual lock on the area.
The trend hasn’t become a groundswell yet. But, the potential stakes are big: millions of diaper changes a year.
Procter & Gamble Co., whose Pampers and Luvs brands wrap up about half the approximately $5-billion disposable market, reports no discernable dent in its business from hospital defections and the growth of diaper services nationwide during the past few years.
But neither are disposable diaper manufacturers willing to give up a single customer without a fight, and some hospital officials say they have been bombarded with informational materials from all sides.
“I must have 20 videos that have been sent to me by companies that don’t want us to go to cloth,” said Kathy Kenyon, clinical manager of maternal-child health at Intercommunity Medical Center in Covina. About 200 babies a month are delivered at the hospital, which started using cloth diapers May 1 as part of a three-month tryout.
The diaper dilemma is a complicated one because of conflicting data on whether cloth or disposables are better for the environment, cost less and are easier on a baby’s skin.
But hospitals that are making the change say they are under pressure to reduce the amount of waste they send to landfills, and diapers seemed like an obvious target.
At Queen of Angels-Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, “we have over 650 babies a month, and we’re talking a lot of diapers,” said Mary Jane Cox, director of perinatal services at the hospital, which switched to cloth diapers in early April as a 60-day tryout.
Before the diaper change, the hospital was sending about 11 tons of disposable diapers to landfills each month, Cox said. The medical center delivers more babies a month than any hospital in the county except County-USC Medical Center.
Other hospitals that have recently moved to cloth or are about to try it are Glendale Memorial, Queen of the Valley and Westlake hospitals, all customers of Pasadena-based Dy-Dee Diaper Service. An affiliated diaper service, Orange-based Dy-Dee Diaper Service, signed up Irvine Medical Center when it opened last August. In San Diego, Babyland Diaper Service recently got Sharp Memorial Hospital as a diaper customer, and two other area hospitals plan to start the service in the next month. Almost all use cloth diapers only in their newborn nurseries and continue to use disposables in their pediatric wards.
Disposables account for about 85% of all diaper changes nationwide, with the rest belonging to reusable cloth diapers either washed at home or commercially. The diaper service business has grown about 70% in the past two years, according to the National Assn. of Diaper Services, but the Philadelphia trade group does not keep track of revenue figures for its 183 members.
For Dy-Dee Diaper Service of Pasadena, hospitals are an important customer, said owner Brian O’Neil. (His brother, Timothy O’Neil, owns Dy-Dee Diaper Service of Orange County. Their father, Jim, started Dy-Dee 53 years ago, and the two sons have built a virtual empire locally of dirty diapers.)
Although the diaper service, which has annual revenue of about $8 million, is not making money off the hospitals, company officials say they represent an important new market that is producing a steady stream of potential new customers. For new parents, “there’s probably a perceived implied endorsement” when their bundles of joy come diapered in cloth from the hospital nursery, O’Neill said.
Such an influence is probably less strong now than when disposables first appeared, thanks to years of heavy advertising, said Hugh S. Zurkuhlen, an analyst who follows Procter & Gamble for the Salomon Bros. investment firm.
“The companies obviously would prefer them to use disposables, but they have enough awareness in the minds of new parents that there’s not the influence that there might have been 15 or 20 years ago,” he said.
Although more than 90% of hospitals still use disposable diapers, it is a relatively small piece of the diaper market, said T. Scott Stewart, a Procter & Gamble spokesman.
“Have we lost business? . . . We don’t see it. You could maybe have a local diaper service that’s doing a pretty good business versus a year ago and it would not be read in terms of our measurements,” Stewart said. Still, the company is not content to let business go.
“We provide (hospitals) with information in a proactive fashion,” Stewart said. “The best defense is a good offense, in this case.”
Cox said she has received “a healthy little pile” of materials from disposable diaper companies since the hospital began considering cloth diapers.
“They haven’t changed my mind any, but they sure did try,” she said.
Cloth diapering is not necessarily the same as it used to be--a key selling point to hospitals concerned about efficiency and controlling the spread of infections. Many of the hospitals that are trying out cloth are not using pins and rubber pants. Instead, the diaper service provides a cloth diaper cover with Velcro closings.
At Queen of Angels, the used covers, diapers and all that they contain are dropped into a small duffel bag that hangs from the end of each crib. Unlike the diapers of an earlier generation, these diapers are not rinsed or soaked first by the user. The diaper service takes care of all the cleaning and adds a bacteria-retarding agent to the rinse water.
Queen of Angels is about halfway through its tryout, and “I would say that is looks like it’s going to be OK,” Cox said. “Some of the staff was for it, and some was not. Some of the patients are for it, and some are not.”
Using cloth diapers costs the hospital about the same as disposables, said Susan Denton, director of hospitality services.
“The main motivation . . . is to reduce our waste stream,” Denton said.
Kenyon of Intercommunity Medical Center said the hospital considered many factors in making its decision, including infection-control problems and even whether some low-income mothers would feel guilty if they couldn’t afford a diaper service.
“It’s working well,” Kenyon said, noting that disposable diapers still have fans on the nursing staff. “It’s a little more inconvenient, but I think it’s worth it. . . . It’s a planet thing.”
Diaper Dominance About $15 billion is spent each year in the United States on disposable diapers.Although Kimberly-Clark Corp.’s Huggies brand is the most popular, the combinedshares of Pampers and Luvs give their manufacturer, Procter & Gamble Co., the biggest piece of the diaper pie. All percentages are approximate. Luvs: 24% Huggies: 33% Pampers: 26% Other disposables: 17% Source: Salomon Bros.
