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Mary Altaffer / AP
Children cool off at the Hamilton Fish swimming pool on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on Aug. 4, 2009, in New York.
You teach your kids to wash their hands before eating and after using the bathroom, but do you make sure they shower before swimming in a public pool or water park?
Probably not, says a new poll that surveyed parents of elementary school children. Conducted by the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan, the poll found that of the 865 parents surveyed, only 26 percent felt it was very important to take a shower before swimming. In contrast, 64 percent said it was very important for children to avoid swallowing the water they swam in.
“Parents seem to understand the risk of contaminated water for their kids but few have their kids take the necessary preventive steps to keep everyone healthy,” said Dr. Matthew Davis, who directed the poll and is an associate professor at the University of Michigan Medical School.
The findings also suggest that many parents don’t understand the range of risks for contracting waterborne infections.
More than 10,000 Americans are sickened annually by recreational water illnesses, which can cause diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal cramps and fever or skin, ear, respiratory and eye infections. Such illnesses can be acquired by swallowing contaminated water and having contact with it in swimming pools, water parks, water play areas, lakes, rivers and oceans.
Unfortunately, such cases are on the upswing. There has been a substantial increase in outbreaks associated with swimming in the past two decades, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Currently, the leading cause of swimming pool-related diarrheal illnesses is the parasite Cryptosporidium, which can survive for days even in well-maintained pools. Reported cases of cryptosporidiosis increased more than 200 percent between 2004 and 2008, from 3,411 to 10,500 cases.
North American water parks, which drew approximately 79 million visitors last year, work to ensure their water is clean and safe, Aleatha Ezra, a spokesperson for the World Waterpark Association, told msnbc.com. “There are very specific water-quality guidelines in place to keep the water clean and chlorinated,” she said. “You can’t operate a public pool or water park without following them.”
Still, the chlorine-filtrated water is not meant for drinking, and that’s where proactive efforts like showering can make a difference. “It really does cut down on the chances of putting germs in the water in the first place,” Ezra said.
Many parents, though, aren’t getting the message. According to the C.S. Mott poll, only 15 percent of parents think their children are at high risk for contracting an illness at a water park, while 33 percent believe there’s a high risk of their children drowning. In fact, the risk of drowning is much lower than that of getting sick. The solution, say experts, is a collaborative effort between park and pool operators and parents that focuses on simple preventive measures. Among them, according to C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital:
- Shower or wash thoroughly with soap and water before swimming.
- Take children on bathroom breaks or check diapers often.
- Remind children to not swallow the water or get water in their mouths.
- Do not swim if ill with diarrhea.
One way to learn these lessons, aside from a painful firsthand experience, is to participate in the CDC’s Healthy Swimming Video Contest. The winning entry, which should be 60 seconds long and highlight tips for illness-free swimming, will receive $1,000. The deadline for submissions is July 4.
Other stories you might like:
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- Parents dream of kid-friendly airports
- 5 best new ice pops in the U.S.
Rob Lovitt is a longtime travel writer who still believes the journey is as important as the destination. Follow him at Twitter.
Leave a Comment:
I got in a hotel pool once a few years ago, which is something I rarely do. A few days later, my tongue started to go numb. About a week later, the entire left side of my face was paralyzed with Bell's Palsy. Something had gotten into my ear and caused an infection; the swelling pinched the facial nerves where they pass through my skull causing paralysis. My wife says it was just a coincidence, but I'm not buying it. When the infection subsided I regained normal facial movement, but I'm even less likely to get into any public pool than I was before.
Proper pool chemistry helps prevent swimmer’s ear and other recreational water illnesses. The Water Quality and Health Council is making free pool test kits available to the public this summer. These allow swimmers to check for appropriate pH and chlorine levels. Order your free pool test kit at: www.healthypools.org/freeteststrips.
I would classify this as "much ado about little". If there were people dropping dead left and right every day from swimming in contaminated pool water, I could see where the results would be a bit more what the researchers were expecting. But as it is, I've taken a dip in pools and even lakes and rivers all my life and never suffered any sort of water-borne illness as a result.
If showering can dramatically reduce infections from public pools, why don't they install showers and require that everyone shower before getting into the pool? People can shower with their bathing suits on.
At the YMCA where I have my memebership, there are showers with body wash provided and signs all along the path to the pool that read "Everyone must shower before entering the pool". I guess the problem is most people don't know why it is they should shower BEFORE swimming. This article is just what's needed, but usually those folks are the last to read something like this.
My kid picked up some warts on her belly from an inner tube at a lazy river ride (Disney's Typhoon Lagoon). There was an attendant there, helped a person off one inner tube, then plopped my kid right into the same tube that another person had just left. She contracted something called pearl warts on her side, right where the skin touched the tube. Took about 15 months to get rid of them, and their removal cost more than the admission price into the park for all of us. Kid wore one-piece suits for six years after that, and no more shared inner tubes. I'm for mandatory soapy showers with suits on, maybe make the showers part of the fun and set them up so they can't be bypassed--at least from the neck down!
First off essie222 you cant PROVE that was the exact cause of the warts. which really deflates your whole story. Yes you can get diseases from pools , but you can get diseases almost everywhere else too.
might as well live in a bubble if we want to hide from all the bad things in the world
The only issue I had was in highschool. I never went swimming, ever in my life and it was mandatory to take a swimming class in P.E. Of course I was mortified, however, I never contracted anything bad which was good! Although, my entire body and face turned red and bumpy and stayed that way for the next few weeks. I suspected, as others have also told me I had a bit of a reaction to the chlorine since I've never swam in it before.
We were never told to shower before hand, always after. Good to read this article.
Yes sir and public breathing and living on Earth and have ever being born is all going to lead to a bad end.
Seriously..... everything in this world is going to kill us!!!! I think the constant stress from worrying about everything is doing more damage....
Public swimming pools are nothing more than public toilets that people immerse themselves in. GROSS!!!!
I like it knowing you don't have to feel guilty about it anymore. We've all come out of the closet! Pool Pissers all of you!
Rope swing into a muddy pond down the hill from a livestock barn! Now that's living! People are such wimps these days.
I'd MUCH rather do that than jump in a public pool! For one thing, it's just more fun.
Where I live there are constant problems with cryptosporidium infections from swimming in public pools.
Biggest offenders are public pools, hotel and condo pools -- where a lot of children swim.
I swim a lot of laps, but *only* at 24 Hour Fitness, where it's 99% adults. Hopefully, adults aren't crapping in the pool. So far, so good.
OK, contradictory advice here:
1. soapy shower before swimming to protect against waterborne infections
2. sunscreen before anything outdoors to protect against skin cancer
The two health mandates can't coexist comfortably as far as I can tell. Shower the kid, dry him thoroughly, and then sunscreen him? All before going to the pool? We'd never make it there!
How about no one in diapers in the adult/non-diaper-wearing pool? I mean, you can only "check diapers" so often. Keep the un-toilet-trained in a baby pool, where they can take their chances with the other diaper-wearers.