New dry max pampers nappies

So, as many of you mums and dads are probably aware, the nappy giant Pampers have decided to change their active fit and new baby nappies. Gone are the nappies with know and love and in their place are much thinner nappies with a new "dry max" core. They are billed to be much drier and, as one of Procter and gambles (the multi billionaire makers of pampers nappies) Research and development people said "feels like underwear but absorbs like a nappy".
The trouble is - I don't think there are many of us that actually WANTED a change in a nappy that worked brilliantly well in the first place.

The first anyone of us actually knew about a change was when we ripped open the packet and a little purple card fell out asking us to fill out a questionnaire about our experiences with the new nappy. There is nothing whatsoever different about the packaging. Nothing on the outside to tell you that what is inside is different. Did I fill it out? No, I was too busy changing my baby's pooey bottom. On went the nappy, the card went in the bin...

The new nappies look very much different to the old active fit. There is no soft mesh netting inside and the cottoney pulp has also gone. Add to that the absorbent gelling material only goes a short way to the back of the nappy and you are asking for lots of miffed mums and dads.

So, we started using the new improved active fit (size 4) and weren't at all worried. Why would we be? Pampers are well known for producing a fantastic nappy that you can trust not to let you down and to give your baby the best in comfort.

Then Olivia developed a nappy rash. Again, we weren't worried. All babies have nappy rash from time to time - she must be teething. My husband and I made sure to change her nappy every 2 hours or at least to check and add more sudocream/bepanthan. Usually her rashes would go very quickly, within a few days. This one seemed much more persistant. A few days later and far from going away seemed to be getting worse. In fact it got so bad that I took her to our emergency doctor service as it was a saturday. He gave us canesten - give it a couple of days. I was far from convinced. Being a nurse I know what a fungal nappy rash looks like - this didn't look the same. But off I went. When the next day it started to bleed and was covering her whole anal area, back I went to the emergency doctors. He gave me yet another funghal nappy rash cream. And so on and on we went. Multiple doctors visits with me pleading with them to listen - this isn't a funghal nappy rash - look at her open bloody sores!! I have never in my life seen anything like this before. But still I never thought it could be the nappy. Nappies just don't do that. So throughout this we were using the new pampers active fit with dry max. I was buying boxes upon boxes of them as they were so cheap - and we were changing so frequently.

I tried every single cream that you can think of. Prescribed and non prescribed - non made a difference. We were all at a loss as to what was causing this awful open weeping sores. Sores so wet that the cream wouldn't even stick to it. Till one night.

We had an estate agent round to take photos of our house ready to go on the market. Olivia had only had a nappy on for a short time - just long enough for us to meet with our estate agent. When he left my husband and I went upstairs to change her and the blood that greeted me as I removed her nappy made me feel physically sick. I managed to sob out above my daughters agonised screams - we are taking her to A&E - they must be able to do something!! Once again off we went. The doctor - lovely as he was couldn't do anything to help us. I said to him - it looks like she has a burn - how do you treat severe burns? Can we have her swabbed? Yes, certainly - at our GP's.

The swab came back clear for all signs of fungus - her open sores were infected with bacteria from her gut. We were prescribed another cream and in the meantime stopped using the pampers nappies. I had come across the huggies superdry that said they were super breathable. No nappy on as usual during the day but if necessary stop using the new pampers and put one of these superbreathable huggies on her. Let the air get to her. Within days her rash had started to heal.
Then the penny dropped. A friend had emailed me the link to the US Facebook site "bring back the old cruisers/swaddlers" and on it was a photo of a rash almost identical to Olivia's.

I have never had a problem with a rash like this since I stopped using the new pampers dry max. Whenever her rash would start to heal before and I put a dry max nappy on her the rash would come back with a vengence. I thought this was because her rash wasn't exposed to the air - I now know better.

These nappies are the cause of my daughters horrendous rashes. And also a factor in her developing functional fecal retention - a subject I'll talk about in a later post.

My fight with pampers was just beginning...