What are these spots on my diapers?

[ChapelHillMommy]

I'm new to cloth diapering -- and all of a sudden all my inserts and many of my diapers have these scattered brown spots on them! They're not poop stains. Are they mold? I wash them every other day, remove them from the washer promptly, dry them in the sunshine, and only use a dry pail to store dirties. Despite the spots, they absorb fine, and they don't smell. Today I ran a wash cycle with Bac-Out, which did not remove the spots, and then I ran another cycle with non-chlorine bleach, which also did not remove the spots. The sun did not do anything to fade them either. Right now the inserts are drying in the dryer in case the spots are mold (and in case they survived the Bac-Out, the bleach, and the extra rinses!).

Does anyone know what these spots could be? I don't mind if they're just stains, but I'm hesitant to put them on my baby until I'm sure they're not something that could hurt him.

Very few of my friends cloth diaper their babies (and the three that do have never had spots like this), so I don't know where else to turn!

Thank you!!!

[luv-my-boys]

the only time I have ever had spots like what you mentioned they have been mold/mildew spots .

[Marissamom]

brown spots could be rust. anything with them with metal? or have they sat in the washer too long? I think that's the only thing I can think of. haven't had this happen with dipes, but it did with some of my clothes once.

[ChapelHillMommy]

How do you get rid of them? After all the washing I did today, are they safe to put on the little guy even though the spots are still there?

[Mom2M]

It could be rust from the water. One time the city was doing work on a main pipe and I didn't know and ran the washer. All the clothes came out with rust stains like that and the only way to get them out was to use a rust remover. However, you can try this method to see if it works
http://www.ehow.com/how_4614994_rust...-clothing.html

Good luck

[is it puppies?]

rust or other dirt from the clohespins? we get that sometimes when line drying.

[sacridote]

I was going to say rust as well. Our washer is over 11 years old, and is starting to leave rust spots on everything... There is major rust around the bleach dispenser

Have you noticed spots on anything else? If it is rust, there isn't really anything you can do to get it out.

[sunnygir1]

I have this too, but only on my prefolds. Lots of tiny spots, like mildew, but not quite like any mildew I've ever seen before. I never got them when diapering dd, but I have them this time around. I think a good stripping (especially since you bleached them) should do away with anything potentially harmful.

FWIW I'm continuing to use mine. I've washed in super hot water followed by an extra rinse cycle with vinegar and dried in my ridiculously hot gas drier to kill anything that might have been living in them.

[Mosaic]

I'm fighting the same thing, though I have black AND brown spots! I've bleached the heck out of them, stripped 'em, used every wash known to may (oxyclean, borax, dawn, vinegar, baking soda, odd combinations of all of the above, nothing at all, all on hot hot water). I've dried the heck out of them, too, hot hot for at least 75 min. The spots won't go away no matter what I do. I never had this problem with DD1, but this time around is so annoying!

I think at this point they are stains. I've continued to use them and DD hasn't suffered any ill effects, and they don't seem to be getting worse.