In Canada, Australia and Britain, Diapers are often called nappies, a type of underwear that allows toddlers to urinate and defecate without using a toilet. These are infants who are not yet ‘toilet trained’ and adults with incontinence or in circumstances where access to a toilet is unavailable.

As the Norwegian Harald Sverdrup observed in his 1938 book "Among the Tundra People,” in the 19th century- the modern diaper began to take shape whereas mothers in different parts of the world used cotton materials, wool or rubber pants in the place.

In 1930, Robinsons of Chesterfield had what he termed as "Destroyable Babies Napkins.” After fourteen years, Hugo Drangel of the Swedish paper company Paulistrom suggested a conceptual design composed of placing sheets of paper tissue (Cellulose wadding) inside the cloth, but cellulose was rough for the skin.

So in 1946, Marion Donovan in search of a suitable cloth for her baby, used a shower curtain from her bathroom to create a diaper from army surplus nylon parachute cloth. She was issued a patent of her product by the New York City in 1951 and she sold the rights to a private company for $1 million. After Donovan, another Scottish housewife Valier Hunter Gordon started developing a 2-part system consisting of disposable pad worn inside an adjustable plastic garment with snaps by using old parachutes for the garment. She also got the patent, but big manufacturers were unable to see commercial possibilities of disposable nappies.

But Gordon was not discouraged according to Harald, but rather kept manufacturing more Paddi and used her husband to negotiate for the market which was tiresome to get at the time. He then met Sir Robert Robinson at a business dinner, negotiated to sign a contract which was signed two years after, and the Paddis went into full production from that time.

The Paddi were successful for plenty of years, and after the second world war, mothers increasingly wanted more diapers to so that they can work and travel easily, and during the 1950s companies such as Playtex, Johnson and Johnson as well as Kendall entered the disposable diaper market and in 1956, Victor Mills invented what would be trademarked "Pampers”.

Pampers now account for more than $10 billion in annual revenue at Procter&Gamble, according to Harald.

Over the next decades, the diaper industry boomed and it led to a greater competition which accounted for change in drastic changes of design and improvements among other changes.