Nappies - Who needs them ?

One of my recollections from childhood in Africa was how odd it seemed that white children wore nappies and generally black children did not. This was later reconfirmed during my travels as an adult in India, the far East and China. How wonderful I thought for little children not to be burdened with cumbersome nappies. However in those days I did not explore it any further and was totally unaware that the mothers who carried their babies were never soiled or wet.

Many years later this came back to me when a pregnant friend told me that she was not going to use nappies on her baby. She had read a lot about the intuition a mother has with her baby in more primitive cultures and believed that all mothers had this intuition if they were in tune with their child. In spite of my up bringing I found this incredulous and negatively thought that it would not possible to do in our society. As I was also pregnant at the time and hoped to nurture my baby in the most natural way possible, I was really interested to follow her progress and to learn from her. We met up a few months after her baby was born and I was simply stunned to witness a three month old baby not only with no nappy all day, but apparently signalling when she needed to go, being held on a potty and, surprisingly delivering the goods!

From then on I was determined to find out more and see whether this was a path my husband, Joseph and I wanted to take. I read a lot on the web, joined an e-mail community of western mums who were practising EC (elimination communication) and thought back to my child hood. When Joseph was just 4 months we decided to give it a go. I had read enough to realise that is was perfectly natural and totally possible for all babies to communicate their elimination needs.

By nature no creature would soil their own nests. Animals have a sense of hygiene which instructs them to eliminate away from their “living space”. And yet, in our so-called highly developed society, we expect our babies to wee and poo into nappies which are pressed against their delicate skin for considerable lengths of time. The “experts” tell us that babies have no control over their elimination until around 2 years old and because it is all we see from friends, family and the media we believe it. So how then do millions of babies in less developed countries manage without nappies? Surely they must wee and poo all over the place? Or do they?

From birth a baby instinctively communicates to its mother when it is hungry, tired, cold and yes, when it needs to eliminate. The difference between our society and so many others is that we have lost this vital piece of knowledge and intuition. Life with nappies has become so the norm that generations have come to believe that we can not live without them.

© Maggie Howell 2006