Lesley Warren was, until recently, a loyal Pampers customer.
The Toronto mom exclusively used Pampers Baby Dry diapers for her now four-and-a-half-year-old daughter and returned to the brand for her son, who is now two-and-a-half.
“I probably dumped $1,000 on Pampers diapers since my daughter was born,” Warren told Global News.
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But that changed in July, when Warren sent her son to daycare for the first time.
When she picked him up, she was met by distressed caregivers, who described the appearance of a sudden skin rash on the child’s bottom, despite frequent diaper changes.
Upon inspection, Warren found what looked like a burn along the side of her son’s buttocks. It didn’t look like a normal diaper rash, she added.
“It ran the length of the diaper liner.”
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It was then that Warren noticed the Baby Dry diapers she’d put on her son that morning looked a little different from what the family had always been using.
Later that day, she saw a post on Facebook by another mom, whose daughter seemed to have developed a severe skin reaction after switching Pampers diapers.
The post included a photo of the rash, which looked exactly like what Warren had just seen on her son.
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The author of the Facebook post was Natalie, also a Toronto mom, who has asked Global News to be identified only by her first name. She had noticed blistery red spots on one of her then-eight month-old twins.
“It was like a burn. There was a clear outline where the skin had broken out and started bleeding,” she said.
The rash appeared immediately after Natalie switched to a new box of larger-sized Pampers for one of her baby daughters, the bigger of the two twins. The new nappies featured a different design. Her other daughter, who continued to use the old diapers, had no issues.
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Suspecting that the rash was tied to the new diapers, Natalie rushed to put her daughter in a different brand of baby diapers. The skin irritation started improving immediately after, she told Global News, although it took several days to clear up.
Warren also saw her son’s rash die down after switching to different diapers. In her case, the irritation took two weeks to heal completely.
Christina Couto, another Toronto mom who posted a warning on Facebook about the new design of the Pampers Baby Dry, described a similar experience, and several other moms in the Toronto area reported similar incidents on social media. Many others posted that their babies had no problems with the new Pampers diapers.
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Reached by Global News, Procter & Gamble, which makes the Pampers diapers, said it is phasing in a new version of the Baby Dry diapers in Canada.
No new material has been added to the new diapers, Sarah Pasquinucci, a spokesperson for P&G Baby Care, said in an email.
“Rather, we have improved the diaper with Extra Absorb Channels, which has been the design in our Pampers Swaddlers and Cruisers diapers used and trusted by millions of families around the world, including Canada. The channels change the shape of the absorbent layer to help lock wetness away from baby’s skin and distribute wetness more evenly, which keeps baby drier.”
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The company started rolling out the new Baby Dry diapers in select sizes last spring. Pampers Swaddlers and Cruisers with the same design have been on the market in Canada and other markets since 2015, according to Pasquinucci.
Warren and Couto noticed the skin rash after switching from the old to the new Baby Dry model. Natalie switched from the old Baby Dry to the Swaddlers.
“For all of our products, Pampers works with leading pediatricians, pediatric dermatologists and safety experts to keep baby’s safety and comfort at the heart of what we do,” she noted.
Most of the time, a more absorbent diaper reduces the risk of diaper rashes, which are generally caused by wetness against the skin, said Dr. Carl Cummings, a Montreal-based pediatrician and assistant professor of pediatrics at McGill University.
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Warren and Natalie didn’t have the rash checked by a pediatrician, as the irritation improved quickly after switching diaper brands.
Couto brought her two-year-old daughter to see her family doctor, who advised to treat the irritation with hydrocortisone cream.
Shown a photo of the rash on Natalie’s daughter, Dr. Cummings said it looked like a “significant irritation rash.”
“I see why parents described it like a burn. The fact that the redness is linear makes me suspect some direct contact cause. More sensitivity than allergy,” Cummings wrote in an email to Global News.
Often, even when companies test baby products, issues can emerge when they are rolled out to a broader market, said Cummings.
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“You can find out that there are sensitivities to something that didn’t show in, say, a limited number of babies,” he added.
P&G said boxes of the new Baby Dry model prominently feature a picture of the updated liner design. “In addition, we added paper inserts into our boxes/bags to inform parents about our diaper enhancements,” Pasquinucci wrote.
All three moms interviewed by Global News said they didn’t immediately notice the change.
Cummings hasn’t so far come across parents reporting contact rashes seemingly tied to Pampers diapers in his practice in Montreal.
It’s well known that different babies can show sensitivity to different diapers, he noted. Over the years, he’s heard from many parents who said their babies’ skin would react to a particular diaper brand, but there has been”no consistency,” as to what brand causes irritation.
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Warren, Natalie and Couto all contacted Pampers after the appearance of the rash.
In emails reviewed by Global News, P&G offered Natalie’s mom, who had purchased the Pampers Swaddlers, a $23 voucher “towards compensation.”
Warren said the company sent her $45 worth of Pampers coupons, while Couto reported being offered a $50 debit card.
None of them are planning to go back to Pampers diapers, however.
“I’m certainly cognizant of the fact that different babies react to different things,” said Natalie.
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