by BLACK ENTERPRISE Editors
October 25, 2025
A quarter of families miss work as a result, often because they don't have enough diapers to send their children to child care.
In America, diapers have long been treated as a luxury rather than a necessity.
Half of families with young children struggle to afford all the diapers they need. A quarter of families miss work as a result, often because they don't have enough diapers to send their children to child care.
It is a largely invisible problem with enormous consequences for the health of parents and children. Studies have found that the need for diapers is a greater contributor to postpartum depression than food insecurity and housing instability. And if parents don't have enough diapers, they make do with sanitary towels, cloths or other materials. Some report having to leave their children in soiled diapers for long periods of time, increasing the risk of urinary tract infections and diaper rash.
Amy Kadens, who has worked in the diaper industry for nearly 15 years, wondered: What if diapers were free to the parents who need them most? For decades, the United States has not had a good answer. So she developed her own “The 19th” reports.
In 2011, diaper banks popped up across the country, collecting donations and distributing diapers to families through a complex network of local partnerships. They are one of the few lifelines for parents.
Kadens, who founded a nonprofit called Share our Spare in 2011 that provides diapers, knew that diaper banks often operate with limited staff and resources and can only operationally meet a small percentage of a huge need. Without more government support, they can only address part of the problem.
Federal assistance programs that help low-income families, such as food stamps and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), have never allowed families to use those funds to purchase diapers.
“Diaper banks do heroic work with very little effort. I didn't want to reinvent the wheel,” Kadens said. But: “I wanted to continue to get involved in it.”
So Kadens started working on a solution that could give people the resources to get all the diapers they needed without the need for warehouses to store the donations or for teams to get those donations out.
That solution was Diaper Dollars, a $40 e-card that users receive via email each month. The virtual card contains a barcode they can scan at checkout at most major retailers, including Walmart, CVS and Walgreens, that covers the cost of diapers. So far, users in Illinois and Ohio can access the program.
The idea, Kadens said, was to make it as easy as possible while giving parents the opportunity to choose which brands they prefer.
“Families have brand loyalty,” Kadens said. “I wanted dignity and choice to be at the forefront of everything we do.”
The Diaper Dollars team conducted months of market research to refine the technology so that it works well for participants. They didn't want vouchers because there were too many scams in the system, and gift cards meant users had limited options as to where they could shop.
Instead, they ended up with a system that allowed them to create a diaper catalog at 6,200 retail locations in the country. The barcode on the digital card recognizes the diapers when scanned and deducts the price from the total purchase price. This diaper catalog is monitored and updated daily as brands release new pack sizes or products. It also works for online purchases.
The system has some limitations. It's not valid at Amazon or Target, two retailers that don't yet accept this payment method. And it likely only meets a portion of the need: The average family spends about $100 a month on diapers, but average-income families can only afford about $65, according to an Urban Institute analysis. It's also more expensive — parents pay retail prices plus sales tax (23 states charge sales tax on diapers, including Illinois). In contrast, products in diaper banks are donated by the manufacturer or sold to the banks at heavily discounted rates.
To find participants, Diaper Dollars works with organizations like WIC clinics and local hospitals to refer people to the program, which is funded through a mix of philanthropy and financial support from the same partners. The partners determine the admission criteria, how long participants can take part in the program and whether the scholarship is higher for multiple birth children.
In 2023, a 100-person pilot program launched, and in 2024, the Illinois Department of Human Services committed $1 million to run its own larger-scale pilot program. So far, almost 8,000 people have been cared for, and the number is expected to rise to 10,000 by 2026.
Illinois Gov. Juliana Stratton told The 19th that she has been looking for solutions that could support people during the postpartum period, when maternal mortality is high, particularly among Black women. In particular, diaper need is related to maternal mental health and is considered a potential risk factor for moderate to severe depressive symptoms in the mother. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the maternal mortality rate for Black women in 2023 was 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births. There were 14.5 deaths among white women.
When Illinois launched a birth equity initiative to address parents' postpartum needs, from a home visiting program to increased access to diapers, they chose to partner with Diaper Dollars.
“Giving someone a card that allows them to go to the store of their choice and decide what's best is part of dignity,” Stratton said. “Every woman deserves to bring life into this world safely and with dignity.”
Brendan Kitt, program director for Diaper Dollars, said the program was able to provide an operational solution to a problem the state wanted to address but had no mechanism for. The system works similarly to a universal basic income, where people in need receive a cash grant, but is more targeted.
“It's always a question for both funders and supporters when you talk to people about where the money goes,” he said. “The fact that we can limit transactions to the specific needs we are trying to serve is, in my opinion, one of the most important things that legitimizes our operations over simply providing basic cash assistance.”
Parents who benefited from Diaper Dollars told the organization in testimonials that they had to resort to underwear or old T-shirts when they didn't have the money for diapers, and often had to choose between rent and diapers.
After going through the program, parents reported that the funds gave them scope to buy other essentials for their children or prepare better meals for them.
About 90 percent of those who completed the program said they were better able to afford essentials such as food, rent and other bills. About 95 percent felt less stressed because they didn't have enough diapers.
Joanne Samuel Goldblum, CEO of the National Diaper Bank Network, which has more than 240 partners nationwide, said a model like Diaper Dollars can address unmet needs, particularly in rural areas where it is more difficult for diaper banks to distribute products.
“The need is truly so great, and it will not be met by just one type of response or one type of program,” Samuel Goldblum said. “It’s really important to have opportunities to reach people in diverse communities.”
The Diaper Dollars program has raised approximately $2 million to date – 45 percent from the state of Illinois, 35 percent from philanthropic donors and 20 percent from grants from community partners. The company is now in Ohio and is expected to expand to Washington soon.
Kadens' dream is to bring the program to every state. Since Roe v. Wade has been ousted and some red states have introduced abortion bans, conservative lawmakers are looking for ways to support postpartum parents.
For example, in Tennessee, which banned abortions in 2022, the state implemented a new policy in 2024 that allows families enrolled in Tennessee's Medicaid program to receive up to 100 free diapers per month for the first two years of life.
Samuel Goldblum said the National Diaper Bank Network has seen more bipartisan support for meeting diaper needs this year “than we've ever seen before.”
It should be that simple, Kadens said: “It doesn't matter if you're blue or red. Babies need diapers.”
This story was produced by The 19th and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
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