Poor economy and diaper rash: cause and effect?

According to data from the CDC, the increase in sales of diaper cream has increased, while the number of babies born and the number of disposable diapers bought have decreased at the same time (SOURCE).

Here are the hard numbers: the Centers for Disease Control reported that the number of babies ages 2 and under fell 3% last year while disposable diaper sales slipped a whopping 9%. And yet, there was a 2.8% increase in diaper rash cream, despite fewer babies.

This doesn't necessarily mean that the sluggish economy is directly the cause of what seems to be an increase in the amount of baby butts with diaper rash, but it's definitely interesting.  Although we cloth diaper mostly full time, there are days when we don't get to the laundry, or the diapers sit in the dryer waiting to be folded and put together...those are the days we use disposables.  And sometimes, we stretch it a bit, leaving Desmond in a diaper much longer than is necessary.  I mean, the type of "longer" where the little absorbent beads start leaking out of the diaper and pepper his privates.  That's when I start to feel like such a crap mom and commit to folding the diapers and putting them together.  But also, part of it is that the diapers we buy (the huggies organic cotton ones) are so expensive.  "Why not buy the regular diapers?"  We've tried them and found them to be more plastic-y and smellier (in a perfumey way) than the organic cotton ones, so we shell out a few extra dollars for a packet of 40.  That pack usually lasts us all month, but when we get really lazy with the cloth diapering, we tend to stretch it and leave Desmond in a wet diaper longer than he should be in one.

The average American baby bottom sees 6.3 diapers a day, and with parents shelling out an average of $1,500 a year for diapers, it's easy to see why some might turn a blind eye to a slightly damp diaper (especially when disposable diapers are so absorbent nowadays)
And of course, parents are doing everything they can to meet their families' needs with less money, but is it really at the expense of their tots' tushes? 

We wouldn't be surprised if other explanations beyond parents skimping on diaper changes included folks making the switch to increasingly popular cloth diapers, others pushing potty training earlier, which Pampers marketer Procter & Gamble suggested, and even just more aggressive marketing efforts on the part of diaper cream makers and retailers.

Market research is so interesting!  I mean, isn't it cool that local health departments use a type of market surveillance that, for example, alerts public health officials to a possible diarrheal outbreak in children when Pedialyte or other oral rehydration solutions fly off the shelves in supermarkets?  Too cool.