Our neighborhood pool closes for the season on Sunday.
Typically, it closes on the day after Labor Day, but thanks to global warming we’ve had a run on sunny 80-degree days, and the powers that be delayed the pool’s closure for a few weeks.
Being able to swim in an outdoor pool in Wisconsin at the end of September is nothing short of a miracle. (My first year living here it snowed on October 5th.) Needless to say, this extension has been an answer to collective prayers offered up by the neighborhood kids (and a few random adult tanorexics).
I too celebrated the good news, but then irony had to rear its ugly head.
A few days ago while taking my daughter for an after-school dip I ran across a new study that found swimming in chlorinated pools may boost the odds that a child, who is susceptible to asthma and allergies, will develop respiratory problems.
According to researchers, chlorine irritates children’s airways and the water in and air surrounding swimming pools exert a strong additive effect on the development of asthma and respiratory allergies such as hay fever and allergic rhinitis.
“The impact of swimming pool chemicals on the respiratory health of children and adolescents appears to be much more important — at least by a factor of five — than that associated with secondhand smoke,” the study’s lead author noted.
Great.
And here I thought it was an added bonus that smoking was banned from our swimming pool and clubhouse.
As if it were not bad enough that the study concluded that for children with allergic sensitivities, swimming in chlorinated pools could significantly compromise their ability to breathe, the lead researcher made this frightening comment:
“There is little doubt that pool chlorine is part of the reason there is an epidemic of allergic diseases affecting the westernized world.”
Epidemic?
I just wanted to let my kid play in a cool place.
Researchers are not 100 percent sure why chlorine has such a negative effect on kids who are susceptible to asthma and allergies. However, they say the only plausible explanation for the observations is that the chlorine-based toxic chemicals in the water or hovering in the air at the pool surface cause changes in the airway and promote the development of allergic diseases.
I should note that, according to researchers, swimming in copper-silver sanitized pools did not influence the risk of asthma and allergy, and children without allergic tendencies were not at increased risk of developing allergies.
Have you noticed that your children experience respiratory problems after a long day at the pool?
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