Doctor Ayodele Renner, Consultant Paediatrician
The world of exploration has fascinated me since I
was a child.
The voice of Sir David Attenborough narrating a
wildlife documentary was a sure sign that an
exotic and strange new world was on the television
screen.
The Arctic was one of such places. He would visit
that frozen wilderness with his crew to bring images
of how wildlife in all its gore and glory survives in
such inclement conditions.
So, when I learnt about the bold plan by Ariston to
provide heating for researchers working in
Greenland, I became curious and excited.
To investigate climate change, researchers from the
University of Copenhagen set up camp on Disko
Island, a region on the west coast of Greenland.
Greenland is located in the Arctic Circle in the
northern hemisphere where temperatures can drop
as low as 50 degrees below freezing in winter. Were
you to throw boiling water from a pitcher into the
air in such conditions, it would turn to ice before it
returned to the ground.
As a physician I am acutely aware of the effects
that exposure to extreme cold can have on the
human body. From the loss of fingers to frostbite,
to the complete shutdown of bodily functions due
to dangerously slowed metabolism, extremely cold
environments are inhospitable for people who
venture into them.
So the Ariston “ Comfort Challenge” was an
ambitious move to provide heating and warmth for
the climate change researches, in a region where
the temperature hardly rises above 10 degrees, even
on the warmest days of the year.
Apart from constructing an energy efficient and eco-
friendly heated building, the scientists were
provided with hot water, yes hot water, to make life
a little more comfortable in an otherwise hostile
place.
This brings me to the matter at hand. Hot water
and why it is almost synonymous with comfort.
In the tropics, one might imagine there isn’t a need
for the use of hot water because our climate is
rather hot. Well that might not be the entire picture.
Think of a new born baby. Would you rather bathe
the child in warm or cold water? Your guess is as
good as mine. Warm water is more likely to keep
the temperature of the infant well regulated. The
Nationwide Children’s hospital in the US
recommends that the bathing water for an infant
should be about 37 to 38 degrees centigrade.
But I don’t know anyone who measures the
temperature of the water they want to bathe their
children in. However this benefit comes with a note
of caution. The frequency of burns injuries, which
have resulted from children crawling or running into
a bowl of scalding hot water left unattended by a
caregiver, is not negligible.
However, an important preventive strategy for the
prevention of burns injuries to children as a result of
hot water scalds from preparations to bathe the
child is the installation of heating mechanisms that
can regulate the temperature of the water that
comes out of the taps such that it never exceeds a
set temperature.
This almost entirely eliminates the
risk of burns in infants and gives the full benefit of
bathing infants in warm water.
The care of utensils used for the feeding of infants
also requires that hot water be used for both
washing and sterilisation. These utensils have the
potential to harbour germs which can cause
diarrhoeal illness in these children. While there are
various methods of sterilising these utensils, the
use of hot water or steam is one of the most
effective ways of getting them clean.
Sometimes during the process of labour and
delivery, mother may sustain tears or lacerations to
their genitals. After these lacerations have been
sutured, some mothers may still require what is
referred to as a Sitz Bath. In this procedure the
mother is asked to sit in a bath that has warm
water in it to a depth that one can comfortably sit
in.
Some doctors may ask the mother to add salt or
vinegar to the water but that is entirely optional.
This procedure encourages healing, relives itching
and irritation of the genital area and soothes pain. It
also cleanses the area of debris from the procedure
or the tear. Just imagine the convenience of just
opening a tap and hot water comes right out of it
for a mother to dilute for the Sitz bath.
For adults, the health benefits of bathing with warm
water are significant.
A warm or hot shower enhances sleep. Research
has demonstrated that a hot shower before bed has
the effect of reducing one’s core temperature. The
effect of this reduction in core temperature is a
signal to the body that it is time to sleep. This
reduction in temperature happens when blood
vessels in the skin open up in response to a hot
bath, thereby allowing the head in these blood
vessels to escape from the body.
In a finding by a team of researchers in the
University of Texas in Austin, people who took a
bath with water that was between 40 to 43 degrees
Celsius, one to two hours before going to bed was
linked to better quality of sleep.
Dermatologists recommend hot water baths as a
means to rid the skin of dirt as well as opening of
the skin pores to release trapped dirt and oils.
That’s not all. Hot water baths have also been
found to be good muscle relaxants. So after a long
walk or a strenuous workout in the gym, a hot bath
might be the ideal replacement for a massage
because it causes a reduction in muscle tension
making you feel more relaxed.
Whether you are an explorer in the farthest reaches
of north of our planet or in a mother of a new born
baby in the equatorial regions, you will find that hot
water, in one way or another brings comfort and
health benefits to you and your entire team or
family.
So when next you relax in a hot shower or your baby
laughs during a warm bath, save a moment to think
about the miracle of how increasing the temperature
of water by a few degrees can make all the
difference in the world.
By: Dr Ayodele Renner
Consultant Paediatrician
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