Technically, the product is nickel. The disposable diaper was invented by engineer Victor Mills chemist (1897-1997). Today, the padding is made of superabsorbent polymer to water.
These are polymers resulting from the polymerization with partial crosslinking of ethylenically unsaturated water-soluble monomers, in particular acrylic and methacrylic acids, and their alkaline salts.
They can absorb up to 1000 times their weight of water in a few tens of seconds. When they are dried, they are generally in the form of white powder.
These materials are formed by a tangle of polymerized macromolecular chains interconnected by bridges. Each chain link is strongly hydrophilic. In the presence of water, water penetrates the polymer, on the one hand due to the electrostatic repulsion of the polymer chains, and secondly as a result of the attraction of the hydrophilic groups of the polymer. Under the effect of the insertion of the water, the network is deployed, the material swells and forms a translucent gel, several tens or several hundreds of times larger.
So a technical product (I'll spare you the design elastic) for pee and poo to contain (even in its most noxious forms for the latter).
A change quickly, however.