One of my neighbors has a newborn and my boys are 2 and 3 mos. Ds1 is mostly out of diapers, but his occasional misses and ds2's diapers are washed in a machine that is shared by 5 families. My neighbor is concerned about health issues related to sharing a washer with a cding family. She asked her pediatrician, who said that bacteria could be transferred through residue in the machine if we're not using bleach (we're not). A friend of hers who cd's suggested that I could soak the diapers with bleach first and then the bleach would come out in the wash. I'm not willing to do this and am somewhat adverse to the idea of using bleach at all. She is currently washing her baby's clothes with bleach to kill any possible bacteria, and I don't want her to have to do this either. Does anyone know of a natural way to disinfect the machine that is friendly to baby's skin and clothing fibers? I think it should be safe if we're both doing a hot wash, but I don't think I can assuage her concern. We are practicing ec with ds2, though we use a lot of diaper back up. I'm thinking I may need to be more attentive to taking him to pee and wash the diapers by hand if no one has any ideas.
UPDATE:
My neighbor is genuinely worried about her baby's safety. While it's unfounded worry according to my way of seeing things, I need to be flexible enough to make some kind of compromise. She spoke to the women in charge of faculty housing and we received an email stating that diapers should be soaked in bleach before being washed in the machine. My husband spoke with this family today and both their ob and their ped. have now told them that there is a risk of e. coli infection. They believe this is greater than the risk from other kids' and adults' vomit, underwear, etc. They are okay with us using a natural alternative to bleach in the diapers if their ped okays it (I'm thinking this isn't likely
). I was looking at the bac-out and oxygen bleach from the biokleen website, but nowhere does it say that it kills bacteria. Is there anywhere I kind find information about the effectiveness of these kinds of products for a purpose like this?
Right now she is washing a bleach load empty before her clothes, but she thinks this should really be our responsibility. DH mentioned the idea of wiping the machine with bleach, but that didn't really take off for some reason. He'll mention it again when he sees them next. Running an empty load is really too wasteful (energy, water, and $1.15 each time). I think if we pushed it, the company that owns the machines would say that no one can dictate what we wash or how we wash it so long as it is not flammable. What can we do from here???????
UPDATE:
My neighbor is genuinely worried about her baby's safety. While it's unfounded worry according to my way of seeing things, I need to be flexible enough to make some kind of compromise. She spoke to the women in charge of faculty housing and we received an email stating that diapers should be soaked in bleach before being washed in the machine. My husband spoke with this family today and both their ob and their ped. have now told them that there is a risk of e. coli infection. They believe this is greater than the risk from other kids' and adults' vomit, underwear, etc. They are okay with us using a natural alternative to bleach in the diapers if their ped okays it (I'm thinking this isn't likely
). I was looking at the bac-out and oxygen bleach from the biokleen website, but nowhere does it say that it kills bacteria. Is there anywhere I kind find information about the effectiveness of these kinds of products for a purpose like this?Right now she is washing a bleach load empty before her clothes, but she thinks this should really be our responsibility. DH mentioned the idea of wiping the machine with bleach, but that didn't really take off for some reason. He'll mention it again when he sees them next. Running an empty load is really too wasteful (energy, water, and $1.15 each time). I think if we pushed it, the company that owns the machines would say that no one can dictate what we wash or how we wash it so long as it is not flammable. What can we do from here???????
you could always use bac out on your dipes before they go into the washer. you can also tell her that a nurse from christiana (used to work there) who has used cloth diapers, and washed them, for over 5 yrs now says that her newborn will not get bacteria from you washing your dipes in the same machine. and she can email me if she doesn't believe it 
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