Nursing Pads and My Environmental Stance

After the success of my cloth wipes, I decided to try making some nursing pads. Still super simple, but now instead of a straight line, I had to sew a circle. I figured what the heck, they don't have to be perfect, so I gave it a shot. They turned out really well. The are nice and absorbent so I can wear them with the confidence of disposables but without the guilt that they will sit in a landfill for a gazillion years. And again, no weird chemicals in them that make them hold a hundred times their weight in liquid. I had a scary experience with a disposable one. It was the middle of the night and the pad was super saturated. I felt some wetness while nursing and since Lily is a messy eater, I figured it was just milk. When I went to wipe it away, the wetness stuck to my finger and was actually the jelly-like substance that was inside the nursing pad. The nursing pad had broken open and I had these little gel bits stuck to me. And Lily was nursing. I have no idea if she ingested any of these little gel bits, but since this was two months ago and she hasn't had any ill effects, I am guessing not. But it was scary. So as well as they work, I was scared to use disposables over night. So I was changing them constantly, whether they needed it or not. More garbage in the landfill. I guess since Lily has been born I have become a little more eco-conscious. We have always recycled. We have been composting since we moved into our house. In the summer we grow a garden without pesticides. We drive fairly fuel efficient cars. But now that I have a child who will inherit an environment in crisis (okay, maybe that is a bit dramatic) I feel even more compelled to leave it in as good a shape as I can. Hence the cloth diapers, cloth wipes, cloth nursing pads. Okay, off my soapbox!