Low-Income Families and Diaper Need

Diaper crisis among poor families endangers children, study finds, By Eryn Brown, July 29, 2013, Los Angeles Times: “There have been days, since her son Ezekiel was born 11 months ago, that Los Angeles mom Beth Capper has gone without food to keep up her supply. One friend was arrested for stealing some. It’s not drugs or alcohol or even baby formula that has put her in such a bind. It’s diapers. ‘There’s no way around buying them,’ said Capper, a 41-year-old single mother who doesn’t work because of a disability. Across the country, mothers like Capper are facing the same predicament. According to a report published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, diaper need — the inability to afford to keep a child in clean diapers — affects a ‘substantial’ number of low-income Americans, with nearly 30% of mothers questioned in New Haven, Conn., reporting that they did not have enough for their children…”
Affording diapers a problem for 30 percent of moms, study suggests, By Ryan Jaslow, July 29, 2013, CBS News: “Many low-income families receive government assistance to help them purchase food and housing. Diapers are another story, a new study suggests. In what they are calling the first peer-reviewed study to quantify diaper need, Yale University researchers have found nearly a third of mothers cannot afford to purchase their infants diapers, raising health risks for not only babies but for moms who become stressed over the finances…”