Diapers Q&A

diapers...?

do diapers expire/go bad? the reason im asking .. i went to walmart the other day and picked up some diapers and i believe they were huggies supreme? (i normally get pampers crusiers) but i brought them home, and i gave my son a bath and went to put one on him, and realized i could feel something in them, it was almost like crunchy sounding? but i went ahead and put it on him because we had no other diapers in the house, nothing really seemed different, but i had daddy take them back and return them and get pampers again. has anyone ever noticed that? were the diapers "bad" ? or were they okay to use?!

Public Comments

1. I'm not sure if they can go bad or not, however I have also had this happen. It was with a pack of pampers. I can't remember if I had them sitting around the house for a while, but the longest I would have had them here would have been a couple of months...who knows how long they were sitting around at the store.
2. I don't think they have an expiration date, but like anything they could have been defective or maybe been exposed to high humidity and the pebbles absorbed some of it (?). You did good by returning them because you don't want your child to get a rash.
3. i can't remember the brand but i do ussually get huggies so it may be huiggies, the inside on the front edge was kinda hard on several different packages, not all the individual diapers just may be one or two. i still use them. nothing wrong with them that i know of.
4. The crunchy stuff is sodium polyacrylate. It is what turns into the gel inside the diapers when they are wet. It absorbs a ton of liquid and blows up really big, which is why the diapers feel and look different when they are full. Sodium polyacrylate is actually a dangerous substance. It can cause burns if the diaper rips open and it touches the skin, and it can cause respiratory symptoms if inhaled. It is also toxic to cats and dogs if pets get into and rip open diapers. I think the sodium polyacrylate is what caused horrible rashes on my daughter when we used disposables - we switched to cloth, and no problems! Also, most diapers do have an expiration date on the package, but I don't think it's a problem to use them after the date. The company just doesn't guarantee their effectiveness after that day.
5. It sounds like they could have been exposed to moisture and then dried back out. I probably would not have used them and would have taken them back immediately. I buy Huggies Supremes for my son (not because of the brand but because they are the only ones we've found that work for him in fit) and have never had a problem with them.
6. I've had the worst experiences with huggies for both my kids (5years apart). The velcro would just rip off when I opened up the diaper and also the same crunching that you had. They seemed like they would be very uncomfortable on baby! I would stick to pampers, I personally never had a problem. Also, when the velcro was ripping off the diapers, I e-mailed huggies and told them about my problem and they sent me like 10 coupons for free packs of diapers!!!