Greetings!

I sincerely hope you don't mind me posting the following but Liz and I were talking this weekend and the topic of infertility came up. Here's the jist of our conversation.
(BTW - if this offens anyone please report the thread and I will remove it)

Back in the 70's disposable diapers appeared on the scene. There was much controversy about them for various reasons. But I do recall there were problems and thoughts about the chemicals from them leaking and causing infertility in female babies. There was at least one company (and probably others) that had to change the chemicals in their diapers because they were proven to cause infertility.

Is it possible females with infertility concerns have worn those diapers when they were babies? Or are there more tests that should be performed on disposable diapers?

What are your thoughts?

Ron

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Thats an interesting theory. I never even heard of that!
I guess the first thing we would have to find out is if women who are in their late 20's and 30's have more issues with infertility than women in past decades. If infertility rates are on the rise, then it would make sense to do more research on the topic.

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Very interesting, hmm..I was born in the 70's and have issues, who knows if it's linked though, I'm interested in hearing more though.

prob. just one of many causes.

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Its interesting. I was born in the 70s but I don't think my issue would really have anything to do with it. Thanks for posting, though

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unless it affected Europe too, it's not my cause

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Interesting. It makes me wonder if I should revisit the idea of the bleach free diapers (I think the company that makes them is 7th generation). I was concerned that the quality might not be like the big companies' diapers. I'm having a boy but if there is something that toxic, I would stay away anyhow.

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Posted by LaurenExp

Its interesting. I was born in the 70s but I don't think my issue would really have anything to do with it. Thanks for posting, though

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this is interesting....and perhaps i am a bit uneducated but i never realized there were chemicals in diapers. lol i have to laugh at myself but what chemicals would they put in there? i wouldnt think of a diaper as being harmful.......it makes me nervous thinking of the hundreds and hundreds of diapers ive put on my son

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Okay...I found this on Google


A leaky case against disposable diapers
by Steven Milloy

Steven Milloy is a biostatistician, lawyer, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and publisher of Junkscience.com.

"Disposable diapers linked to infertility" proclaimed USA Today earlier this week. "Diapers may harm testes: study" headlined the Chicago Sun-Times. "Do disposable diapers harm boys?" asked the Deseret News.

Should we dispose of disposables? No — unless you plan to substitute the diapers with the flawed scientific study underlying those news reports.

German researchers monitored the scrotal temperatures of 48 boys, ages birth to 4 years and 7 months, using a non-invasive thermal probe. They reported that scrotal temperatures of boys wearing plastic-lined, disposable diapers were about 2 degrees Fahrenheit higher than scrotal temperatures among boys who wore cotton diapers.

Because 2-to-6-degree increases in scrotal temperatures affect sperm development and motility in adults, the researchers hypothesize that infant boys who wear disposable diapers might have fertility problems later in life. And to give their findings currency, the researchers assert that "Male reproductive health has deteriorated in recent decades," coinciding with the use of disposable diapers. The study appears in the October issue of the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Serious questions exist about the study's methodology. But the truly flaky claims are the assertion that male fertility is on the decline and that disposable diapers have played a role in the decline.

As to the study, even assuming the temperature measurements are correct, the researchers acknowledge that no one knows what scrotal temperatures in children normally are; much less do they know how infant scrotal temperatures affect adult fertility, if at all. These data gaps alone should have prevented the researchers from jumping to any conclusions.

The researchers inexplicably passed up the opportunity to explore "normal" scrotal temperature as they only measured temperatures in children wearing disposable diapers and cotton diapers. There were no "buck-naked" controls.

The test also didn't reflect real-world use of cotton diapers that are typically worn with plastic pants to prevent leakage, according to the Personal Absorbent Products Council, a business group.

The temperature probes were designed for adults, not babies. Infant testicles are small in comparison with the scrotum. So the probes may not have measured testicular temperatures, according to Professor Eberhard Nieschlag of Muenster University in Germany.

Temperature data were measured over two 24-hour periods for each infant. But the measurements were not made under controlled settings. Each infant was under the care of his mother in his own home. Temperature data was collected from the 48 infants over a period of one year, excluding July and August. There was no consideration of variability due to indoor or outdoor environment, or infant handling.

Finally with respect to the study, though higher temperatures are known to reduce sperm count in adults, the effect is reversible. And infants won't be making sperm until puberty starts anyway — probably 10 years after the diaper-wearing phase.

"This poorly done study raises a question based on information that is irrelevant, uses techniques that are not adapted to infants and children and reaches conclusions that are unfounded, " says pediatrician and UCLA clinical professor Dr. Lorraine Stern.

The real mess in this diaper study, though, is the exploitation of the unproven claims that sperm counts have declined over the last several decades.

"Study Points to Global Sperm Count Reduction," proclaimed the Associated Press in September 1992. Danish researcher Neils Skakkebaek claimed to have identified a 42 percent decline in mean sperm density and a 19 percent decline in seminal volume among 14,947 men studied in 61 papers published from 1938 to 1991. Skakkebaek's study started a furious debate over male fertility. The most publicized allegation is that exposures to manmade chemicals in the environment caused the supposed decline in sperm counts.

In the diaper study and the related media reports, the German researchers cite claims over male infertility as if the controversy itself constituted some sort of proof. They cite studies that seem to support their contention without any balancing information.

The opening sentence of the study reads, "It has been suggested that male reproductive health has deteriorated during the last two to three decades." This sentence is followed by a presumptuous non sequitur: "several studies have shown that the quality of human semen has declined."

Texas A&M University research Stephen Safe says, "Results of recent studies show that there are large demographic variations in sperm counts within countries or regions, and analyses of North American data show that sperm counts have not decreased over the last 60 years."

Fertility experts recently stated in the International Journal of Andrology, "To show that male fertility is declining is not simple. Few men volunteer and recruitment bias may lead to over-representation of the subfertile. Semen analysis has errors arising from counting and poorly standardized criteria." In other words, conclusions may be hastily drawn from data of questionable quality.

Sperm count claims cannot be easily disproved because of a lack of data and subtlety of effect. Perhaps that why they make the perfect allegation for opportunistic alarmists.

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And this....

And Now For Something Really Big: 12 Facts About Chlorine

? Dioxin, a chemical by-product of the manufacturing of chlorine-bleached paper, is believed to be the single most carcinogenic chemical known to science.
• Cancer-causing dioxin residue from chlorine-bleaching may be found in products like coffee filters, disposable diapers, paper towels, and bathroom tissue.
• Dioxin has been linked to endometriosis, immune system impairment, diabetes, neurotoxicity, birth defects (including fetal death), decreased fertility, testicular atrophy, and reproductive dysfunction in both women and men.
• In 1997, The American Public Health Association unanimously passed are solution urging American industry to stop using the chemical chlorine.
• Chlorine vapors can irritate your lungs and pose a serious risk to people who suffer from asthma and other lung problems.
• When you open the door of your dishwasher after washing, toxic volatized chlorine from dish detergent and tap water is released into the air.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has found dioxin to be 300,000 times more potent as a carcinogen than DDT.* Every year, between five and ten million poisonings are caused by household cleaning products containing toxic ingredients like chlorine.
• Studies show that forty to seventy percent of the dioxin in bleached coffee filters can leach into your coffee; dioxin found in paper milk cartons also leaches into the milk you drink.
• Thanks to chlorine pollution, Americans ingest a daily amount of dioxin that is already 300 to 600 times greater than the EPA's so-called "safe" dose.
• Pregnant women in their first trimester who drink five or more glasses of chlorinated tap water a day may be at a much higher risk of miscarriage than women who drink non-chlorinated water.
• Cancer-causing chemicals like chlorine found in many household products are readily absorbed through the skin.

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Message edited 7/9/2007 10:28:09 PM.

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I'm not buying it.

I was allergic to disposable diapers and my mom had to use cloth diaper service with me.

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If in fact infertility is on the rise, it is most likely related to the fact that many women are waiting longer to have children than in the past.