Guest Opinion: Diaper duty: What Gov. Gavin Newsom owes every newborn

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In the fall of 2025, I interned for Midpeninsula Assemblymember Marc Berman. For my final project, I was asked to brainstorm bill ideas for the upcoming legislative session. Looking at what other states had passed, I stumbled across a little-known bill from New York. Senate Bill S2279C, signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul in December 2024, made New York the first state to require diaper companies to disclose ingredients on product packaging. I suggested California follow suit. That idea became California Assembly Bill 1901, authored by Berman. It’s now on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, awaiting his signature.

As I researched New York’s law, I read about the unsettling, even toxic, compounds found in many diapers: PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” and phthalates found in waterproof layers, fragrances and adhesives; volatile organic compounds like toluene, styrene, and xylene; plastics like polyethylene, polypropylene and polyurethane. Unbeknownst to many parents, the same chemicals found in garden hoses, shower curtains and car bumpers are in diapers, a product an infant will wear thousands of times over the course of babyhood.

Pampers’ website touts “60-plus years of quality, safety and trust” while Huggies leans on the slogan “safety is our #1 priority,” but the absence of ingredient disclosure undercuts the very trust they’re selling. Researchers in Guangzhou, China, published an article in the toxicology journal Toxics in 2025, finding that diapers are a “significant exposure pathway” for infants “whose developing systems are vulnerable to environmental toxicants.” Other scientists who have studied phthalates — the same group of chemicals tested in the previous study — have linked long-term exposure to genital development problems and neurodevelopmental issues later in life.

Despite scientific evidence that newborns absorb environmental toxins, diapers are exempt from the ingredient-labeling rules that apply to products like baby lotion, oil and powder. Those rules come from the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1973 (FPLA), the same law that mandates ingredient disclosures on cosmetics and cleaning products.

In March of this year, Berman, the father of a toddler, introduced AB 1901, working with the Environmental Working Group to push it through the state legislature over the following months.

AB 1901 would not ban ingredients or create unnecessary red tape. Instead, the bill would provide consumers with transparency and choice. It’s the same logic that undergirds the FPLA’s regulations on many products: In a free market, individuals should have the opportunity to make informed decisions about the items they purchase. This gap between what a company knows about its product and what a consumer does even has a name in economics: “information asymmetry.” By encouraging consumers to avoid harmful toxins, mandatory ingredient disclosures incentivize companies to use safer ingredients, correcting the information imbalance.

If signed into law, AB 1901 could affect an estimated 1.3 million California babies currently in diapers, as well as roughly 400,000 babies born in the state each year. Even consumers outside California could see the benefit, since manufacturers often standardize packaging nationally to avoid the logistics of different packaging across state lines. Other states may follow suit as well; California is often the first to pass innovative policy on environmental issues that other states later adopt, from tailpipe emissions in the 1960s to the state’s 2014 plastic bag ban.

What started as a few lines on a Word document is now, after months in the legislature, one signature away from becoming law. Gov. Newsom has until Sept. 30 to decide whether to sign AB 1901. The choice is simple: Sign it.

Ashton Dolce is a Stanford University undergraduate studying public policy and political science.

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