I recently saw one of those ‘water babies’ workouts taking up too many lanes at my neighborhood pool and it looked like something my mother-of-one-year-old friend would want to try.
So I mentioned it to her and she told me she didn’t want to get her child involved in swimming until he was 15 or 16 because it caused asthma. Or that’s what she had heard.
I am pretty sure this isn’t true because if it was the Feds would probably shut down every pool in the country. Anyway, if anyone has any documentation on this I would like to show it to her because I can’t think of a better thing to do for the kid than to get him involved in 10-and-under swimming clubs.
I recently saw one of those ‘water babies’ workouts taking up too many lanes at my neighborhood pool and it looked like something my mother-of-one-year-old friend would want to try.
So I mentioned it to her and she told me she didn’t want to get her child involved in swimming until he was 15 or 16 because it caused asthma. Or that’s what she had heard.
I am pretty sure this isn’t true because if it was the Feds would probably shut down every pool in the country. Anyway, if anyone has any documentation on this I would like to show it to her because I can’t think of a better thing to do for the kid than to get him involved in 10-and-under swimming clubs.
Please. My mom took me to those when I was one, and her only concern was to drag me to the surface once in a while. (I guess I liked to paddle around underwater.) I started on a swim team when I was 4, and 37 years later no touch of asthma.
The couple sites I peeked aren’t sure of the causes, but none of them list “Swimming at young age”.
There is a link between pool chlorine exposure and increased incidence of exercise-induced asthma. There’s both some meta data that supports that, and research showing that swimmers are more likely to have asthma than athletes in non-chlorinated sports, even when you control for swimmers who were told to swim because of the asthma.
Search ‘asthma’ and ‘chlorine’ and there’s a bunch of info.
But it shouldn’t be a reason to keep kids out of swim lessons, especially considering the number of child drownings in America (or wherever you are) every year. Utterly idiotic to delay swim lessons until someone is a teenager.
Yeah, as Jill stated there is some research showing a link, most of it is out of Europe, and it’s all point at indoor pools. The thing to remember is not all pools are equal, some have very good vent systems that keep the gasses in the air very low. Many pools now don’t use a chlorine system.
Personally i think it’s better to be in the water doing something than not.
But it shouldn’t be a reason to keep kids out of swim lessons
**
Wait - you state there is a connection to asthma, and then say that a risk to athsma is not a reason to keep your kid out of the pool?
Come now. You’re being silly. It’s called a ‘false choice.’
A 7 year old learning to swim in an outdoor pool a few hours during the summer is *different *than a 7 year old spending 90 minutes swimming 5 days a week with his club and getting asthma.
The whole argument’s a very silly thing from the get-go. Mom’s avoiding an activity that is guaranteed to reduce risk if the kids spent time near any body of water deeper than a bathtub because there’s probably a 10-20% increase in asthma rates among competitive swimmers (which is way different than saying that 20% of swimmers have asthma)
I swam in our local pool yesterday and it was heavily chlorinated. I had a slight attack afterwards and had to use my inhaler. First time it has happened after swimming in the pool, but I defintaley noticed it was more chlorniated than other pools. I usually swim at a differnt pool which is salt and have no problems.
I swam in our local pool yesterday and it was heavily chlorinated. I had a slight attack afterwards and had to use my inhaler. First time it has happened after swimming in the pool, but I defintaley noticed it was more chlorniated than other pools. I usually swim at a differnt pool which is salt and have no problems.
that happenes to me sometimes too, as for "causing’ asthma they still do not know what causes it. But certain things can trigger it.
I’m not sure I buy into this causing Asthma. I have Asthma and keep it regulated with Advair. I’m in the pool usually 3 times a week and then My daughter is in a swim club 3 nights a week. So, I’m in that environment sometimes 6 times a week for at least an hour at a time. I have more problems with my sinus more than Asthma regarding swimming. I have had minor Atshma issues after leaving the pool but I can’t say why. 1. I’ve just exercised which can do this. 2. It’s a very humid environment usually which really casues me issues at times. 3. Let’s face it I don’t care how much they clean the pool area but there’s always going to be some level of Mold/mildew which causes issues. And lastly, strong chemical smells can cause issues but I wouldn’t think this would be a root cause for Asthma as according to WebMD the actual cause is not really known. If you read up on WebMD it can be a little misleading as they talk about causes of Asthma. They actaully are referring to triggers that can induce a reaction.
I developed adult onset exercise-induced asthma several years ago that I believe was directly related to this awful cover they put over the outdoor pool in the winter. It was a big steam room that had limited visibility (maybe 15 ft) due to the steam and was full of algae growing on the sidewalk surfaces next to the pool (very slippery in spots) and on the walls of the cover…dripping into the pool onto your head when you were lucky. By the end of a Master’s workout, you could never take a deep breath in or it would induce a coughing fit (from asthmatics and non-asthmatics alike). It was nasty. They got rid of it and my asthma improved. Now that I live in Colorado, I’m forced to swim indoors and it definitely keeps my asthma more active. Our pool has decent ventilation though, so it’s not too bad. I would do anything to have a year-round outdoor pool…well, not anything ; ).