Diaper Need Facts
Without diapers, babies cannot attend childcare or participate in early childhood education. Without childcare, families cannot go to school or work to further their education and provide for their families. Educated women and stable families are critical to solving the larger, systemic problems facing Metropolitan New Orleans.
- Diaper need is the lack of a sufficient supply of diapers to keep an infant or toddler clean, dry, and healthy.
- 1 in 3 U.S. moms report suffering from Diaper Need
- 3 million children under 3 live in poor or low-income families.
- Diapers can cost $70 to $100 per month, and babies need 6 to 10 diapers per day.
- 31% of infants and toddlers with at least one parent who works full-time live in low-income families.
- Diaper need impacts the physical, mental, and economic wellbeing of children and their caregivers.
- Lack of diapers has a profound and complex impact on families, including health risks like rashes and urinary tract infections for children and mental problems such as stress, anxiety, and depression for parents and children.
- Low income families are also likely to not have private laundry facilities meaning cloth diapering is not an option for them.
- Diaper banks help address diaper need by providing diapers to nearly one million infants and toddlers each year.
- In the last year, JLNO’s Diaper Bank distributed over 500,000 diapers, and that number keeps growing.
Click here for a printable infographic on Diaper Need.
Additional Resources:
- National Diaper Bank Network
- The HUGGIES® Every Little Bottom
- The 2010 HUGGIES® Every Little Bottom Study conducted in partnership with two leading academics and surveying 2,500 moms with babies in diapers in the U.S. and Canada
- Huffington Post article published August 20, 2017: “Bad Jobs And No Welfare Give Rise To A New Type Of Charity: The Diaper Bank“
- US News and World Report article published May 12, 2016: “Here’s Why Poor Families Pay More for Diapers“
- White House Report from Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council, published March 10, 2016: “The Diaper Divide“
- Forbes, published August 28, 2015: “Barrier To Entry: How Diaper Need Isolates Parents“
- The Atlantic article, published July 21, 2015: “The Diaper Dilemma“
- Los Angeles Times article, published August 11, 2014: “The Shocking Link Between Diapers for Poor Babies and Jobs for Moms”
- Pediatrics, the Official Journal of the Academy of Pediatrics, published July 29, 2013: “Diaper Need and Its Impact on Child Health”
- MSN News article: “Lack of Diapers Can Cause Serious Problems for Families,” published September 22, 2013