Organic Baby Clothes
You don’t need me to tell you that babies need a lot of clothes. The average baby grows out of 4 or 5 complete wardrobe changes in their first year. I don’t have a linen cupboard, it’s full of boxes of my son’s baby clothes saved for potential baby number two.
Baby clothes and bedding are almost universally made from cotton. It’s soft, washes well, and it’s breathable, making it the ideal fabric for baby clothes.
It’s also one of the most chemically-dependant crops grown today. Tons of fertilizer, insecticides, and herbicides are used on every acre of cotton grown. To grow enough cotton for an average t-shirt, 1/3 of a pound of agricultural chemicals has to be applied to the soil and plants. For one t-shirt! There is something wrong when the amount of pesticides needed to make a garment, weigh more than the garment itself. And surely some of those chemicals are retained in the cotton fibres that will be worn next to baby’s skin?
It makes the case for organic baby clothes very compelling. As demand has increased, more cotton farms are going organic, and the price of organic clothes has fallen. I remember seeing organic t-shirts for $50 each at a baby boutique a couple of years ago. Today an organic baby t-shirt can be bought for under $10 so now most people can afford to make at least part of baby’s wardrobe organic.
Baby Soy, Sckoon, Speesees, Under the Nile, and many more independent companies, all make adorable baby clothes, sleepwear and sheets from organic cotton. Most of these companies also say that they pay a fair price for their cotton, and are against using sweatshops and other unfair labor practices.
Big brands like Gerber are making organic onesies and the like, and retailers like Gap, Target and Walmart are getting in on the act too. Makes me wonder, if I buy an organic cotton baby t-shirt at (notoriously un-eco-friendly) Walmart, does one cancel the other out?
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Brenda says...
Big notoriously NON eco-friendly companies that are starting to sell organic baby clothes do cancel the other out. To me buying organic baby clothes is about giving my baby a healthy start and doing the right thing knowing that the workers who made those clothes are not working in sweatshops in some third world country so that I can be happy paying pennies for my clothes. I want to be the change and I want to support the change for a cleaner environment for my children and for just wages and fair labor practices around the world. Supporting independent companies is the way to go for me. These small companies have beautiful styles and their prices are reasonable too. I normally go to http://www.bestbabyorganics.com to buy some items from Sckoon, Speesees, Under the Nile, and many other good brands. That way I only pay one shipping charge as opposed to buying from each brand separately.
Danone says...
It’s really hard to determine whether one cancels the other out. I would rather buy from socially responsible businesses that sell organic cotton. This way I know that not only am I getting quality merchandise, but I am also buying from a company that cares about the environment.
Acai Berry Pills says...
I’m always into discussions on anything organic, so this read made me feel at home.
I’ll bookmark the site and subscribe to the feed!