[Still_Learning]

So we take our 2 year old to the beach at least once a week. Lately he's been finding great fun in putting his face in the water, getting water in his mouth and spitting it out.

The day after the beach he had a little diarrhea.

So it just hit this completely idiotic mother that he could catch something BAD from the lake water.....all those people peeing in it.

In the future I will stop him from purposely putting the water in his mouth. I could just kick myself for letting him in the past....

But of course, he will get water in his mouth at the beach regardless of whether he's doing it on purpose or not.

What can I do?? We stopped his vax around 9mo....so he had 3 hep vaccines before that.

Thoughts? Worry too much? Not enough? Anything else I can do?

 

[faithnj]

Oh you poor thing. It's an honest mistake that anyone could make, and it could happen anywhere. It's not always easy to know when water is safe for babies. A baby around here got Hand, Foot & Eye? disease last summer from our community tot pool. Still, it's not a reason to give into paranoia.

As for me, I'd stay calm about this whole thing and keep an eye on my child. But I'd also call the local Water Authorities to find out what they know about the lake water. I'd take dc to the doc for a stool culture, just to make sure he didn't catch an intestinal worm or something that needed treatment. And then take heart-- he'll grow, become heartier and less prone to catching certain types of bugs. And he'll stop drinking water every place he encounters it! LOL!

Faith
(Who's teaching her dd to swim, but dd drinks the bath water, her friend's pool water......she'd probably drink toilet water and from puddles if I gave her half a chance. Sigh.)

 

[Still_Learning]

I'd take dc to the doc for a stool culture, just to make sure he didn't catch an intestinal worm or something that needed treatment. And then take heartQUOTE]

Really? You'd take him to the doc?

 

[sweetpea333]

my dd 2 also drank some lake water and had diarreah last week...i never thought to take her to the doc's tho... it went away on it's own... but i never thought about worms and such...

 

[faithnj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Still_Learning Really? You'd take him to the doc?

Yup. My doctor is close by. I have insurance and the co-pay is $20. Why wouldn't I??? I'd at least put in a call to ask questions, or bring in a stool-sample. Depending on what gave your son the diarhea, he might need antibiotics. And there's really no way for your to know what gave him the diarhea, without seeing a doctor or contacting a water quality authority, right? On top of that-- remember, lakes contain feces from a variety of animals. Heavy rains can really make lakes contaminated, or stir up bad sediments from the bottom. Water run-off from near by farmed animals can pollute lakes. I think they have to take water quality test from popular swimming lakes every day. And I don't know what state you are in, but I'm sure you can find advisories for lakes in your state on the internet.

Here's an idea of some of the things you can get from drinking lake water:

Quote:

What are recreational water illnesses (RWIs)? PoolRWIs are illnesses that are spread by swallowing, breathing, or having contact with contaminated water from swimming pools, spas, lakes, rivers, or oceans. Recreational water illnesses can cause a wide variety of symptoms, including gastrointestinal, skin, ear, respiratory, eye, neurologic and wound infections. The most commonly reported RWI is diarrhea. Diarrheal illnesses can be caused by germs such as Crypto, short for Cryptosporidium, Giardia, Shigella, Norovirus, and E. coli O157:H7.

This came from: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyswimming/what.htm

 

[pigpokey]

The pee is safe. There are some other things that can cause illness as a previous poster noted. When I was growing up on a recreational lake, I'm sure I took on lake water all the time. I never was treated for an illness from it that I recall and I was not warned against it. The only time it was a problem was when it got really hot and we had little rain and the lake was still, and then there would be advisories not to go into the lakes because of something that could cause meningitis. At those times, my parents would not allow me to go underwater. I tend to believe the evidence that exposure to germs and parasites is good when a child's immune system is developing in terms of preventing allergies and autoimmune conditions later. That's just my take on it. I wouldn't worry about mild illnesses from lake water. Probably does him good.

 

[alexsam]

What you really need to watch for is Giardia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giardia). There may be other issues if the water is contaminated by human feces, but in general, that's not a huge concern (people don't make swiming areas in sewer dumps!).

 

[LEAW]

Not sure where you live, but here we've had so much rain that all the runoff from the streams, storm sewers, and who knows what else have really raised the bacteria levels in the lake above what is considered safe. Not to mention all the extra pesticides, lawn chem, and ??? that gets in there.

We've been to the lake 4x this summer, as early as May, and each time my dd comes down with a 104 fever w/in 48 hrs. So we're not going back this year. We'll play in the sprinkler, the pool, the bathtub, but 3 days of 104 cranky baby is NOT worth the hour of fun in the lake.

 

[faithnj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lisa2976 Not sure where you live, but here we've had so much rain that all the runoff from the streams, storm sewers, and who knows what else have really raised the bacteria levels in the lake above what is considered safe. Not to mention all the extra pesticides, lawn chem, and ??? that gets in there.

And that's really an important point. The OP has not said where she lives. And nobody here knows when the last rain was before she took her baby to the lake, or if there are farms nearby. How can any one of us judge the quality of water we know nothing about?

As I said, OP needn't become alarmed. Her DC is probably just fine. But still--- none of us know what caused the diarhea, and no one will know without a check-up. I can't speak for anybody else, but personally-- I'd want to know what gave my child diarhea. If I couldn't afford to go to the doctor, I'd at least call the local water authorities and ask what the water quality had been lately. Folks around here tend to swim in the ocean rather than in lakes. (Unfortunatly, even ocean water gets contaminated.) There are postings about the water quality every single day.

Faith

 

[pigpokey]

Very good point Faith.

 

[Ellp]

A friend of mine's boy had this last summer. She wasn't watching him and figured it was ok if he had a couple of swallows of lake water. Turns out that he developed diarrhea to the point where there was blood in the stool. Took him to emerg. because the stomach cramps were so bad and turns out he had some sort of bug from the lake water. It also didn't help that there are lots of wildlife and birds around so who knows what sort of stuff he had.

Her son was put on a week or so of antibiotics and a stool sample was taken which confirmed the diagnosis. I'm sorry I don't have any details of what he had, it was last summer. It just served as a lesson to me not to let Dd put her face in the water!

 

[speairson]

My dd loves to put lake water in her mouth too. I try to stop her, but like the OP said, they're going to get some water in their mouths no matter what. If it were me, I would wait to see if the diarrohea persisted or not. You said he had a little the day after. Honestly I wouldn't take my child to the dr for that, but if it persisted or if it were accompanied by a fever or rash or something I would.