Consumer Product Safety Commission investigation into Pampers Dry Max

[Anonymous]

in lieu of all the soap and water that you are using to get the stain out, you can wash it one time as you normally would and then put it out in the sun while it is still wet. this bleaches out the stain in a chemical free way. it is what cloth diapering moms do to get the poop stains out
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Yes but how do you get all the feces out of your washing machine?

[Anonymous]

Excellent article on the pros and cons of each. Those of you saying how much better for the environment cloth diapers are, you are really fooling yourself!

http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Diaper-Not-Clear.htm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, you do guess. Now you're just being melodramatic.

So if your baby blows out of a disposable, you throw her whole outfit away? Or, as you describe, do you bleach the hell out of the everything?

The 3-4 times I've had one of my infants blow out a diaper, I rinsed off the outfit as best I could, put it in the washing machine, washed it for several cycles, and then when I was done I ran an empty cycle with lots of bleach. I can't imagine doing this every day for every single poopy diaper (and with two kids, that is lots of poopy diapers every day!). I'd have to hire help just to do the laundry! Some times I've just had to throw the outfits away, because the stain from the poop wouldn't come out. I can only imagine what reusable diapers start to look like after multiple uses!

And to the PP who asked what we do with disposable diapers with poop in them . . . yeah. You wrap them up and throw them in a diaper jeannie. Are you honestly saying it is more "natural" to have poop in the human drinking system than it is to have it out in nature? Ever hear of fertilizer??? What do you think 99.9% of all mammals do with their poop, flush it down the toilet??

WOW, you sound OCD. It's poop. Not some toxic chemical. Rinse the outfit first and wash the clothes on a hot cycle and be done with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

in lieu of all the soap and water that you are using to get the stain out, you can wash it one time as you normally would and then put it out in the sun while it is still wet. this bleaches out the stain in a chemical free way. it is what cloth diapering moms do to get the poop stains out
[Report Post]

Yes but how do you get all the feces out of your washing machine?

I don't understand the concern of poop in your washing machine. You're rinsing the outfit first, right? So there shouldn't be a ton of poop on the outfit at that point. And your washing machine handles stuff like this every day (think of all the other dirt, food, grime, stains on your kids clothes). It all gets washed out with the water. Look at the inside of your washing machine. Doesn't it look pretty pristine in there?

[Anonymous]

I don't understand the concern of poop in your washing machine. You're rinsing the outfit first, right? So there shouldn't be a ton of poop on the outfit at that point. And your washing machine handles stuff like this every day (think of all the other dirt, food, grime, stains on your kids clothes). It all gets washed out with the water. Look at the inside of your washing machine. Doesn't it look pretty pristine in there?

Toilets look pretty pristine, too - at least mine do. But you don't have me soaking my clothes in toilet water before I wear them, either!

Washing machines do NOT sterilize your clothes unless you somehow have it rigged up to run on boiling watter. If you aren't using bleach to kill off all the bacteria/germs from the feces, your washing machine is no cleaner than the inside of a toilet. If that is fine with you, more power to you and your poop-covered clothes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Excellent article on the pros and cons of each. Those of you saying how much better for the environment cloth diapers are, you are really fooling yourself!

http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Diaper-Not-Clear.htm

Is that what folks here have been arguing? Because I see a lot more saying they didn't like the chemicals in disposables. You're making a big assumption here that fans of cloth haven't done any research, and that's generally not the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I don't understand the concern of poop in your washing machine. You're rinsing the outfit first, right? So there shouldn't be a ton of poop on the outfit at that point. And your washing machine handles stuff like this every day (think of all the other dirt, food, grime, stains on your kids clothes). It all gets washed out with the water. Look at the inside of your washing machine. Doesn't it look pretty pristine in there?

Toilets look pretty pristine, too - at least mine do. But you don't have me soaking my clothes in toilet water before I wear them, either!

Washing machines do NOT sterilize your clothes unless you somehow have it rigged up to run on boiling watter. If you aren't using bleach to kill off all the bacteria/germs from the feces, your washing machine is no cleaner than the inside of a toilet. If that is fine with you, more power to you and your poop-covered clothes.

You are seriously cracking me up. You must bleach and boil all your family's clothes. There could be sweat on them, spit-up, vomit, pee, poop, semen, vaginal discharge, dirt, environmental pollutants from the air outside...

[Anonymous]

Here is an independent study on the cleanliness of the inside of a washing machine.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/22/earlyshow/contributors/susankoeppen/main5409778.shtml

[Anonymous]

You are seriously cracking me up. You must bleach and boil all your family's clothes. There could be sweat on them, spit-up, vomit, pee, poop, semen, vaginal discharge, dirt, environmental pollutants from the air outside...

I think it is silly that you are comparing normal laundry soil to dirty diapers. I wash the laundry weekly (actually, my husband does it) and when we are done, we clean out the machine with a rinse cycle in bleach. That way we aren't carrying over all the dirt from load to load every week. Woah . . . I totally have OCD! I should go to the doctor for this behavior. It is way less normal than taking my toddler's poop and dumping it into the washing machine every day and pretending it just magically disappears.

[Anonymous]

Dr. Chuck Gerba is a microbiologist at the University of Arizona told CBS News, "That's why you never want to do your underwear with your handkerchiefs because your bacteria transfers back and forth. You'll be blowing your nose with what's in your underwear."

Microbiologist Ron Schnitzer said your washing machine may clean your clothes, but contrary to what you might think, it probably isn't killing germs. Instead, he said the bacteria isn't killed, it's diluted.

And hot water, Schnitzer said, may not even do the trick.

He said water temperatures above 180 degrees are needed to kill the bacteria in your clothing. However, he said most homes do not have water that hot.

As for laundromats, they had very low bacterial counts in Koeppen's tests. Why? It could be the water is hotter and the machines are cleaned.

To clean your home machine, Schnitzer recommended every two to three cycles you run an empty cycle with bleach to get rid of bacteria.

Thanks, but I'll take the advice of the microbiologist over the cloth-diaper loving mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I don't understand the concern of poop in your washing machine. You're rinsing the outfit first, right? So there shouldn't be a ton of poop on the outfit at that point. And your washing machine handles stuff like this every day (think of all the other dirt, food, grime, stains on your kids clothes). It all gets washed out with the water. Look at the inside of your washing machine. Doesn't it look pretty pristine in there?

Toilets look pretty pristine, too - at least mine do. But you don't have me soaking my clothes in toilet water before I wear them, either!

Washing machines do NOT sterilize your clothes unless you somehow have it rigged up to run on boiling watter. If you aren't using bleach to kill off all the bacteria/germs from the feces, your washing machine is no cleaner than the inside of a toilet. If that is fine with you, more power to you and your poop-covered clothes.

That's fine, but following this logic, shouldn't I be running bleach through my washer after every use? What about all the bacteria and germs from the dirt at the playground (which could have animal feces of some kind mixed in it)? Or the drool from some other kid that ends up on my son at daycare? (Let's not even talk about all the germs and bacteria at daycare. I should probably boil/bleach my son when he gets home.) What if my kid throws up all over himself? It's a germy world out there!

I dunno. Maybe I'm totally gross. But I've been running poopy diapers through the wash just once and doing no bleach and it seems to be going fine so far.

[Anonymous]

To clean your home machine, Schnitzer recommended every two to three cycles you run an empty cycle with bleach to get rid of bacteria.


I have never heard of anyone actually doing this. I'll stick with my bacteria, thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I don't understand the concern of poop in your washing machine. You're rinsing the outfit first, right? So there shouldn't be a ton of poop on the outfit at that point. And your washing machine handles stuff like this every day (think of all the other dirt, food, grime, stains on your kids clothes). It all gets washed out with the water. Look at the inside of your washing machine. Doesn't it look pretty pristine in there?

Toilets look pretty pristine, too - at least mine do. But you don't have me soaking my clothes in toilet water before I wear them, either!

Washing machines do NOT sterilize your clothes unless you somehow have it rigged up to run on boiling watter. If you aren't using bleach to kill off all the bacteria/germs from the feces, your washing machine is no cleaner than the inside of a toilet. If that is fine with you, more power to you and your poop-covered clothes.

That's fine, but following this logic, shouldn't I be running bleach through my washer after every use? What about all the bacteria and germs from the dirt at the playground (which could have animal feces of some kind mixed in it)? Or the drool from some other kid that ends up on my son at daycare? (Let's not even talk about all the germs and bacteria at daycare. I should probably boil/bleach my son when he gets home.) What if my kid throws up all over himself? It's a germy world out there!

I dunno. Maybe I'm totally gross. But I've been running poopy diapers through the wash just once and doing no bleach and it seems to be going fine so far.

Honestly. I'm with you. I refuse to panic. It is a germy world, we are clean and healthy. (Generally clean. I do have a toddler and infant, so let me not overstate matters! ) I have more than enough on my plate without making up new things to worry about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
To clean your home machine, Schnitzer recommended every two to three cycles you run an empty cycle with bleach to get rid of bacteria.


I have never heard of anyone actually doing this. I'll stick with my bacteria, thanks.

Well, now you have! Monk up there does it at least once a week.

[Anonymous]

That's fine, but following this logic, shouldn't I be running bleach through my washer after every use? What about all the bacteria and germs from the dirt at the playground (which could have animal feces of some kind mixed in it)? Or the drool from some other kid that ends up on my son at daycare? (Let's not even talk about all the germs and bacteria at daycare. I should probably boil/bleach my son when he gets home.) What if my kid throws up all over himself? It's a germy world out there!

I dunno. Maybe I'm totally gross. But I've been running poopy diapers through the wash just once and doing no bleach and it seems to be going fine so far.

No, that would be overkill. If you are really into being squeaky clean, and want to be able to perform surgery in your laundry room, use bleach in between each load. Most normal people deal with the day to day soil you mentioned above (drool, spit up, playground dirt) by washing their clothes normally and when they are done with the laundry for the week, cleaning out the machine. Because like you said it - it is a germy world out there! There is no way to keep from coming in contact with those kinds of pollutants during the normal day.

But poop? Seriously? You don't mind being covered in poop residue every day, especially when it is in your power to control it by just rinsing out your machine with bleach? I get that you can't control pollen and drool and the like, but come on. Running poopy diapers through your washing machine and just calling it good? That is disgusting. You really are kind of disgusting.