Whether or not you’ve taken a stand in this summer’s online conversation about whether or not swimming in the pool counts as a bath for children (our expert opinion: it does not), chances are you may not think it’s necessary to have guests shower before a pool swim. After all, a public survey by the Water Quality & Health Council found that 68% of Americans don’t shower before swimming in a pool, and 44% see it as unnecessary.
Image Courtesy MyPoolSigns.com
The misconception may be due to an overtrust of pool chemicals and chlorine’s ability to disinfect. But good swimmer hygiene makes a big impact on pool water quality and with it, the health and safety for all swimmers.
Why shower before pool:
- Chlorine is a highly-effective disinfectant. But it’s not foolproof or perfect. Pools treated with chlorine require a complex chemical balance that should also be kept within an ideal pH range between 7 and 8 to maintain chlorine’s effectiveness. This becomes more complicated when you add people to the mix because, well, our bodies and the substances and microbes they’re covered with interact with pool water chemistry.
- These substances include sweat, sunscreen and cosmetics, dirt, urine, fecal matter, and bacteria. Sweat and urine, both nitrogen compounds, interact with chlorine ions to create chloramines, a disinfection by-product which causes skin and eye irritation, itchiness, and redness.
- The more of these contaminants there are in the water, the faster a pool’s free chlorine levels are exhausted, exposing swimmers to unnecessary risk of irritation and disease. For example, diarrhea outbreaks remain the most common swimming-related disease outbreaks. While properly maintained pool water disable or kill most germs within minutes, Cryptosporidium bacteria (a diarrhea-causing germ) can survive for up to 7 days.
- One common irritation that is caused by unbalanced water chemistry, including too high chlorine levels, chloramines, and corrosive water, is known as swimmer’s eye. Swimmer’s eye symptoms include red eyes, stinging, blurred vision, discharge, eyelid swelling, and even light sensitivity in rare cases. And while for most people, swimmer's eye will clear up on its own in a few days, for contact lens wearers, swimmer's eye can develop into an infection called Acanthamoeba that can cause permanent damage. Either situation can lead to unhappy swimmers and impact your pool’s reputation.
- In indoor pools especially, high levels of chloramines in the air can cause Granulomatous Lung Disease, also known as “Lifeguard Lung,” which causes serious symptoms including lung tightness and coughing. While proper ventilation is important for indoor facilities, so is maintaining balanced water quality. Chloramines are also the cause of the strong ‘chlorine’ smell around many indoor pools.
- This also creates an environment with a higher risk of swimmer’s ear, an infection in the ear canal caused by bacterial growth.
In short, it may seem silly to most swimmers to shower before jumping in the pool. It may even feel impossible to convince kids to bathe before going for a swim. But doing so helps maintain overall pool cleanliness as well as pool water’s ability to disinfect by reducing the load of bacteria and other contaminants.
So the real question is, how can you encourage swimmers at the pools you operate to bathe before swimming? We have a few pro tips.
- Make it policy and post prominent signage: Make it pool policy and require all swimmers to shower or bathe before entering the pool. Then, post prominent signage about this requirement: the WHQC survey indicated that 37% of respondents would be more likely to shower pre-pool if they noticed signage communicating its requirement.
- Ensure your pool showers are a pleasant, clean experience: In the same survey, 38% of respondents indicated they’d be more likely to shower pre-pool if the showers were cleaner, while 35% indicated a preference for more private showers.
- Communicate frequently and educate your pool guests on the why: When people understand why a rule or policy exists–and the potential consequences of not following–they’re much more likely to comply. Use communication channels like newsletters and social media to provide friendly, clear education for your guests on why it’s important to shower before the pool. You can even tap in-person opportunities such as swim lessons to teach about the importance of pool hygiene.
- Make sure they know it can be a super-quick step: Even a simple 1-2 minute rinse-off will do the job of removing contaminants like dirt, bacteria, bug sprays, and lotions. Helping your guests understand this is an easy, fast step will also help their willingness to do the work of taking a shower before jumping in the pool.
- One other tip to help reduce the workload for pool chlorine: Use regular adult swims as a reminder to guests to change childrens’ diapers. Swim diapers do a decent job keeping urine and feces in, but they’re not foolproof. Even the best have some leakage. Encourage your pool guests to change diapers every hour to help minimize the amounts of urine and fecal matter in the pool. Make sure guests are aware it's your pool’s policy to alert a lifeguard or pool technician when their child poops in the pool, even if it appears contained in a diaper. It’s also a good idea to remind guests to take older children to the bathroom during an adult swim, or every hour, in order to help prevent peeing in the pool.
The other key to balanced pool water, of course, comes down to frequent, documented pool water testing. PoolShark H2O’s simple app can do the complex pool math equations for you automatically, in seconds, making it simple to stay on top of your pool water quality, without overusing chemicals–which can be costly both for health and for your bottom line. As a digital logbook, it locks pool chemical test results and adjustments, making them 100% Health Department compliant and alerting managers and owners when pools go untested for more than 24 hours or require attention.