Pure wool and newborns

Hello all!
I don't post here often, but find what I read very useful!

My query is about using wool with a newborn.
My baby is due midwinter, and so I thought the perfect time of year to use wool soakers over terries/muslins. My mum conveniently asked what I would like her to knit, and so I suggested soakers! Unfortunately, she is less than keen, because she is concerned about wool irritating a newborn baby's skin.
My view is that surely wool is less likely to cause an allergic reaction than PUL (my son reacted to PUL against his skin), but she is still concerned. Does anyone have any advice or information I can use to persuade her?
In a similar vein, am I right that choosing merino wool would be best? Is that the softest?

Thanks very much!

when you lanolils it it will sofen the wool and the wool you use is'nt that titch well i don't find it so. my son loved his longies

Have a read through the rest of this section as similar questions have been asked several times before. You'll find lots if information to pass onto her as to why wool is far better than PUL. Wool is much kinder to babies skin than PUL as it is breathable. My 1 year old has been in wool from birth and we've never had any issues. I also used wool on my other children. The wool you need for nappy covers is handwashable wool with a minimum of 80% wool content. Superwash/acrylic/machine washable wool is no good. My favourite is organic merino aran followed by merino aran, then BFL.

Sorry, Louise, I had a quick search, but can't find anything to show my mum about wool being better than PUL. I've tried a search for 'itchy', 'allergic', 'PUL', 'newborn'... What do I need to use in the search to find what I want?
Thanks!

Your mum may be remembering old fashioned itchy wool!

The lovely yarns available from wahms aren't remotely like that. She will soon see - why not get her some to try - I bet she'll love it!

No idea what to search for I just know we've discussed it loads of times before as many people have sceptical relatives or relatives that think they know better. :lol; Anyway here are a couple of great articles to show her -

http://danishwool.com/content/intro/woo ... overs.html

http://www.sheepytimeknits.com/about/whywool.htm

Sheep breeding has come on in leaps and bounds in the last decade or so. Whereas wool use to be mainly a byproduct of the meat industry due to industrialisation and growing populations, this lead to mass produced, poorly cared for animals = poor quality wool.

Now certain breeds are bred specifically for their wool, with more concentration on quality of the animal, well looked after sheep = better quality yarn.

Also breeds like Merino, Rambouillet, BFL, Shetland are bred for knitting wool as they produce soft, lovely yarn. Some breeds bred for carpet wool and so on. Send her some lovely wahm yarn, then ask her if it feels itchy. Quite a few main stream, wool shop yarns are blended with a mix of high and medium quality wool to maximise profits. Wahm yarns are generally 100% pure Merino/ BFL etc so higher quality.

Also in production a lot of the natural lanolin is stripped in main stream yarn, wahm yarn generally contains some natural lanolin making it softer, some contain more than others depending on yarn production/ dyeing technique.

Hth

Sorry to take ages to reply, I went away for the weekend...

Thanks for those articles, Louise. That is just what I was looking for. Will email them to my mum, and hopefully she will be placated. If not, I will just have to knit the soakers myself!

Wow behki that was so useful!

Quirkyfaye, it has taken me a while to get DH happy with using wool, but just this weekend he put baby in her wool shorties