Every year there is a conference on hyperbaric medicine in St. Catharines, Ontario. Last year there were several key note speakers one of which was Dr. Louis W. Jankowski. He was to speak on his research ofChildren in Diving. I desperately wanted to attend but unfortunately could not. I have two friends who were able to and gave me a general overview of what was presented. Forgive me for any inaccuracies as I am severely underqualified to be a definitive source of this information and I wasn't there to hear it first hand. I really wish I were.
There are a few concerns regarding children breathing compressed gasses in a pressurized environment.
First, the increased pressure adversely affects the long bone growth in children. As they approach the age of 16, these affects are reduced. When children as young as 12 years old are exposed to a hyperbarometric environment, these affects increase drastically. These are some of the most important years in a child's physical development.
Second, the eustachian tubes in children are not at an angle condusive to clearing the pressure in their ears and sinuses. This is due to the underdeveloped skull and inner ear. The tubes start out running almost horizontal and as children develop, they begin to take on a more diagonal configuration. I believe the changes begin to take effect around the age of 12 and are complete by the time they are around 16.
Third, a child's underdeveloped brain has not developed the "hard wiring" to deal with highly stressful or panick situations. Because their brains are like sponges, they remember everything they are taught but may not recognize the urgency of a situation and if they do, they can not deal with it. This is not a psycological problem, it is a physical development in the brain that has not occured yet. Think about how an adult deals with a situation where a close friend or family member is in dire danger and then apply the same situation to a young child sometimes as young as 8 years old. when you are diving with a young child, if one of you are in trouble, you are both in trouble and the situation becomes exponentially worse.
Fourth, children are much more succeptible to oxygen toxicity. Nobody knows exactly what partial pressure of oxygen will become toxic to a child but it is drastically higher than that in an adult. This fact was discovered by accident when infants were given pure oxygen to assist in healing other ailments and were experiencing permanent retinal dammage (usually total blindness.) Some people are allowing children to dive on nitrox not realizing what they may be doing to their children. As should be taught in any basic course, oxygen toxicity often causes blindness and seizures(almost always fatal in a marine environment.)
Fifth, the effects of nitrogen saturation are unknown in children. There have been studies that show increased incidence of the bends in children even in conservative dive profiles. There are several studies under way but all results are inconclusive as to why this happens.
All in all, I am not saying not to allow your children to enter the sport of diving, just educate yourself on the potential hazzards of it. I do not consider myself anything near a knowledgable resource on the subject. I apologize to Dr. Jankowski for any information I have skewed, omitted or misinterpreted.I invite anyone to correct me or add to the information that I have tried to provide here. At the very least, I hope to have sparked an interest in researching this subject further.
Our children are our future, let's not kill them with a lack of knowledge or the blissful ignorance that nothing bad could ever happen to them.
