Our two-year old, Sorenne, has been reluctant to wash her hands lately. Today during a particularly messy diaper change, she reached down to see what was going on, got poop on her index finger, and decided to wipe it on my forearm saying, “Blech, poop yucky!”

I decided this was a good time to try the “don’t eat poop” slogan. I explained to Sorenne, “Don’t put your fingers in your mouth. Poop will make you sick. Don’t eat poop, ok?” She repeated, “Don’t eat poop!” enthusiastically. I added a little explanation that included her favorite French iPod app, “Feed me!” and reminded her that the monster gets sick when he eats something bad. “Turn green!” she chimed in. “Yuck. Don’t like it!”

That’s what happens if you eat poop, Sorenne. You’ll get sick. So wash your hands. And for the first time in ages, she very happily washed her hands with soap. 

Wandering around Brisbane on a Saturday afternoon we came upon the splash park and beach at Southbank, close to downtown.

Sorenne did some impromptu playing, and I noticed at least three little kids running around naked. The lifeguard soon happened along and told the parents to at least put a diaper on the toddlers. I asked the lifeguard, was that to prevent little ones pooping in the splash park and he said, he didn’t know, it was just policy.

It’s a good policy.

WIS reports the Splash Pad at Drew Wellness Center is back open after being closed for nearly a month when a child was found sick with a case of the parasite cryptosporidium.

Since then, the city has revamped its procedures for keeping track of how the pad is maintained.

Ray Borders-Gray with the Drew Wellness Center, said,

"After what happened, we took a good hard look how we were doing business. The standard Operating Procedures for the Splash Pad is now written down, all staff have taken a look at it, the standards are now here on site, so if anyone has any questions about what should happen, when it should happen. …

"We are asking people to wear the proper swim attire. We want to make sure the little ones are in the diaper swim pants and we ask that people do not bring their pets to the Splash Pad."
 

Benjamin Chapman

Traducido por Gonzalo Erdozain

Resumen del folleto informativo mas reciente:

- No es tan solo caca 
de un bebé tierno; Norovirus, Shigella y Salmonella pueden ser transmitidas a la comida a través de la caca (incluyendo la caca de bebé) y causar enfermedades.

- En el 2007, un brote de enfermedad alimenticia, el cual causo 4 hospitalizaciones, fue vinculado con el cambio de pañales a un niño con diarrea en un Chuck E. Cheese de Maryland.

- Recuerde al mozo de limpiar y desinfectar las mesas luego de ser usadas; no cambie bebés en la cocina(especialmente aquellos con diarrea).

Los folletos informativos son creados semanalmente y puestos en restaurantes, tiendas y granjas, y son usados para entrenar y educar a través del mundo. Si usted quiere proponer un tema o mandar fotos para los folletos, contacte a Ben Chapman a benjamin_chapman@ncsu.edu.
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@benjaminchapman y @barfblog.

It was about 105 F when Amy and Sorenne and I touched down in Phoenix yesterday afternoon, to visit family and do some work. Pools – and air conditioning – become increasingly popular in Phoenix and elsewhere as the temperatures climb.

So that means the annual increase of cryptosporidium and other bugs related to exposure in swimming pools. Debate has raged over the past couple of years in various communities: what’s the best way to keep poop out of pools, especially with kids in diapers (I have one of those).

The U.S. National Swimming Pool Foundation marked the emergence of summer by sending out a press release today about some research presented in March by researchers from University of North Carolina-Charlotte that found swim diapers help slow the release of disease-causing germs, but the benefits are short lived.

The researchers measured the amount of microspheres that released from swim diapers worn by children. The microspheres have a similar size (five microns) to that of Crypto. Normal swim trunks, common disposable diapers and reusable diapers with and without vinyl diaper covers were tested. Swimming trunks without a swim diaper of any kind had the poorest performance - almost 90% of the microspheres were released into the water within one minute.

Swim diapers released about 50% of the microspheres within one minute. A vinyl diaper cover placed over a disposable swim diaper slightly improved performance. Still, over 25% were released into the water within two minutes.

"When a fecal accident contains about a billion disease-causing Crypto oocysts, hundreds of millions of oocysts get into the water within minutes," explains Dr. James Amburgey, the lead scientist in the study. "Swimmers only need to ingest about ten Crypto oocysts to become infected."

"This study confirms that parental restraint is the key to preventing Crypto outbreaks - not swim diapers. Swimming with diarrhea is irresponsible because it places other people's health at risk," reinforces Thomas M. Lachocki, Ph.D., CEO of the National Swimming Pool Foundation(R) (NSPF(R)) who funded the research.