North Carolina diaper banks say families are struggling to get the products their children need during a national diaper shortage.

Michelle Old, the executive director of Diaper Bank of North Carolina, said requests for diapers have increased 400% since the pandemic began.

But while roughly 400,000 diapers were previously coming in each year from diaper drives and other donations, that figure has dropped to under 10,000 this year, she said.

“One hundred percent of the time, if someone is struggling for food, then they’re struggling to buy hygiene items,” Old said. “There’s absolutely no assistance for those products.”

Chance Van Noppen, executive director of Saint Saviour’s Center, a Wake County diaper bank, said they’ve seen need shoot from around 20,000 diapers a month in May to 40,000 last month.

“With the growth that we’ve seen over the last couple of months, but also with the diaper shortage, we’re going to have to make some really hard decisions on how we can provide the most support for those that need it the most,” he said.

He added that they’ve unable to purchase certain diaper sizes from distributors.

Nationally, 1 in 3 families is struggling to provide clean diapers for their babies, according to a 2020 report by the National Diaper Bank Network.

The network saw an on-average 50% increase in diapers distributed monthly after the pandemic began, it said in the report.

And in stores around the country, some families have been struggling to find diapers on the shelves, The New York Times reported.

“We all got a glimpse of that at the beginning of the pandemic, when we couldn’t find toilet paper and we were wondering what we were going to do,” Old said of the shortage. “That is how families living in poverty feel every single day.”

The price of diapers has increased over the past two years, she said.. That, coupled with pandemic-fueled food insecurity, has made it even harder for struggling families to afford the products, Old said.

Across the state, she said Diaper Bank of NC distributes nearly 4 million diapers a year, serving between 4,000 and 6,000 babies each month.

But with donations, community diaper drives and volunteers down significantly amid the pandemic, she said the organization has been struggling.

“We’re now in a position where we’re buying way more diapers [to distribute] than we have in the history of our organization,” she said.

When families can’t afford clean diapers, the impact can be severe.

“If you’re not able to provide appropriate supplies for a child to be clean, they actually go to the doctor more frequently,” Van Noppen said, noting they can suffer from dermatitis and other health conditions.

Not having a full day’s worth of diapers also means parents can’t drop off their children at day care, Old said.

That can affect a parent’s ability to go to work or school, while the cost can mean the difference between having enough food or paying off a bill, she said.

“There’s a misconception about poverty in our community,” Old said. “People assume that a family doesn’t work very hard, or isn’t motivated. That is absolutely the opposite of what we see.”

She said more than 75% of the families the organization works with have one, two and sometimes three jobs.

“Imagine the stress that you feel when you can’t provide the most basic needs for your children,” she said.

Van Noppen said depression decreases, while confidence and general well-being increase when parents get support.

Old said Diaper Bank of NC needs volunteers, with the number dropping from between 400 and 600 each month to just around 50.

“We’ve been wrapping diapers at home,” she said. “All of our homes look like diaper banks right now, just to make sure we can meet the need.”

Others who want to help can do so by organizing local diaper drives or donating to diaper banks, which can buy hygienic products below commercial rates.

“Everyone could go hungry, but not everyone necessarily needs a diaper,” Van Noppen said. “But the reality is that there’s a lot of food banks out there, but not a lot of diaper banks.”

“There’s a lot of folks in Wake County that really have that need,” he said.

The Diaper Bank of North Carolina accepts donations of child, adult, and period products, including opened packages.

To learn more about The Diaper Bank or to find donation drop-off sites, call 919 886-8085, email info@ncdiaperbank.org or go to ncdiaperbank.org/

To contact St. Saviour’s Center, call 919-833-6400, email info@saintsaviourcenter.org or go to www.saintsaviourcenter.org/