Families who are the victims of the cost of living crisis must limit their babies to one diaper a day to make ends meet, a charity has said.
Little Village, which supports families living in poverty throughout Londonsaid it has seen an alarming increase in the number of people calling on its services.
Chief executive Sophie Livingstone told the Camden New Journal: ‘We’ve seen the increase in referrals and a massive upswing in grim situations and dire circumstances.
“It’s babies in one diaper a day and babies who get sores from being in one diaper.”
“We started seeing it in the summer, but last winter we had people who were already struggling when the bills started rising.
“Many families feel that their money is still not enough to make ends meet.”
Rising inflation takes its toll on the next generation as parents and guardians face a 60% increase in the necessities of life for raising newborns, according to the trade publication the grocer.
So Livingstone warned that families are taking drastic measures to survive, because simply living from paycheck to paycheck isn’t even enough anymore.
“We’ve heard about people sitting in the dark and taking a bath once a week, a family of four, including a newborn baby sharing a bed, partly because there are no other beds, but partly to keep warm, ‘ she said.
‘There is also an enormous danger with a newborn.’
‘It is no longer enough to work. There’s all kinds of things about working families, working people, but working is not enough,” she added.
“The safety net has so many holes that it isn’t even a safety net anymore.”
Livingstone said a family using Little Village, which provides people with baby supplies, was referred to a food bank but couldn’t afford the bus ticket to get there.
“You step back and it’s just a tsunami that is absolutely terrible and I’m not sure how this country got to this position,” she said.
Young babies may need to be changed a dozen times a day, while older babies may need to be changed about six to eight times.
In the summer, Pampers products in Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons rose in price, sometimes by several pounds within a month.
The brand’s size six baby-dry night diaper pants rose from £5 in June to £8 in July in Asda.
In Morrisons, the new baby-sensitive baby wipes rose from £11 in July to £15 in August – a price increase of 36.4%.
A similar price increase also occurred at Sansbury’s, with Pampers’ Aqua Pure Baby Wipes rising 25% from £2 to £2.50.
At the time of the price increases, according to official statistics, consumer prices had increased by 10.1% in July compared to the previous year.
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