My early morning sewing session

I was too sleepy by 10pm to start any sewing so took my hubby advice and hit the sack with the kids. Arwen woke me up around 3am for her feed and I couldn’t go back to sleep after that. So, I sneaked out of the room and went into my ever messy sewing room.

Cut a few nappy liners from the flannel I bought from Kamdar and zig-zag stitched the edges. Made 9 pieces and there’s still quite a lot left from my 1 metre fabric. I dug out my mama-pad template I made sometime ago and traced out 2 sets to try them out. I’ve made pocket mama-pads before because they’re easy to wash and dry and if your flow is low, you can just use the shell. Otherwise, if your flow is heavy, you can add on to the inserts using old face towels, etc.

Anyway, this is the AIO version of mamapads. I cut out 4 pieces of white cotton knit from my old t’shirt. This is my first take on the mama-pad. I stack them up incorrectly so instead of having 2 flannels sandwiching the white cotton knits, i have one side flannel and the other side cotton knit. But it was a good mistake as it gives contrast to the mama-pad as I lay it on top of the winged base. I used scraped PUL from Arwen’s diaper sandwiched between the 2 flannel for the base for leak-proofing (I hope). Below is the finished prototype, minus the snaps on the wings.

I was surprised when I google seached about reusable sanitary pads about a year ago, there’s a growing interest in going back to cloth pads like these. You can find free patterns and blogs and even a business selling cloth pads like this. One in particular is lunapad. What I can summarized from my reading is

1. Cloth pads are safer. They don’t contained bleach or dioxin that is linked to uterine infection and even cervical cancer.
2. A mamapad user claimed that the nasty odour is from the disposable pad not from our period. You don’t get nasty odour when you wear clothpads.
3. Some women noticed that their period flow is reduced from  7-10 days to 3-5 days. It’s because of the bleach or dioxin irritates the lining of your uterus. It’s the body’s way of dealing with the irritation. 
4. It’s economical. Something right down my alley now that I’m a SAHM. Your stash of clothpads can last 3-5 years or even longer. Imagine the savings. I bet you, if you put aside the money you use to get disposable pads, after the same period could afford you a nice holiday.
5. It’s earth-friendly. Not filling up a landfill is always a good thing in my book.

Stay tuned, I might come out with a range of mamapads for sale. But if you can’t wait, search around and make some for yourself. Look around the house, there’s lots of material you can use, old towels for soakers, old t’shirts, torn pelikat or batik, anything... Creativity knows no bounds.