New Born Baby And Pollution - Are We Being Stupid?!

[WinnieTheKhwai]

MY baby appears to have lived through it.

So it can't be as bad as the nutters suggest.

Medical advice based on single piece of anecdotal evidence: Thaivisa, For The Win!

As it happens, not everyone is affected in the same way (or affected at all) and that also goes for kids. In case of a newborn you really have no experience on how his/her respiratory system will turn out. As such its better not to take any risks. My oldest never had any issue during March, however my younger one was affected like many kids: irritation in the lungs leading to a bacterial infection / pneumonia. You don't want that in a newborn.

So as for where to go that's also quiet.. Cha Am? Beach towns don't get more dead & boring than that, and there are medical facilities not too far away. Or pick Hua Hin for just slightly more stuff to do. Personally I'm looking at Sri Racha (or that general area), as it's convenient to Bangkok and Pattaya, and you can rent something cheaply.

Note that you don't need to go for the absolute lowest levels of pollution; really most of the country is fine, with the prime exception of the North. I wouldn't fuss over if the average pm-10 is 40 or 60 or 70; all of that is fine, you just want to avoid any crazy spikes you get some years/some days in the North, with values ranging 120-300.

[transam]

Bit off topic, but l was on a respiratory puffer in London for years. Moved to Ubon, no puffer.

[Mapguy]

OP,

Coming to TV, You are asking the wrong people the question. And so far there hasn't really been a very helpful discussion, especially for someone who appears understandably concerned about a first baby.

I hope you talk to a few pediatricians as well as learn more about the effects of air pollution upon newborns. I would do both because a practicing pediatrician is not a public health specialist or researcher on the effects of air pollution, but you could get some very commonsensical advice.

As much as I have fairly recently found on the effects upon general health is posted in the lengthy 2012 discussion of Chiang Mai's seasonal air pollution. It may also lead you to further research that I haven't checked out. The bottom line, when I last checked it, was basically increasing concern about short-term exposure to PM<2.5 pollution as opposed to long-term exposure.

http://www.thaivisa....012-chiang-mai/

I personally have no plans to leave Chiang Mai during the next season, but the pollution here can really be nasty. I think that effective air filtration is an excellent idea, not just for a baby, the elderly, or those affected because of respiratory problems.

If you really want to get into it, you might ask about positive-negative air flow and filtration in the hospital where the child is to be born, assuming a hospital as the birthplace.

I'll close by attaching a little black humor!

Edited September 22, 2012 by Mapguy

[Priceless]

[...]

Note that you don't need to go for the absolute lowest levels of pollution; really most of the country is fine, with the prime exception of the North. I wouldn't fuss over if the average pm-10 is 40 or 60 or 70; all of that is fine, you just want to avoid any crazy spikes you get some years/some days in the North, with values ranging 120-300.

This is very true and the reason I specifically mentioned Sara Buri. There the yearly average is in the 90-100 µg/m³ range with 90-100 days/year in excess of 120 µg/m³! I tend to think that the number of 'bad days' per year should be discussed more often, but these figures are rather hard to come by.

/ Priceless

Edited September 22, 2012 by Priceless

[chiang mai]

MY baby appears to have lived through it.

So it can't be as bad as the nutters suggest.

A little bit of pollution is part of life in the 3rd world.

Well this nutter says that sadly, respiratory diseases don't really become apparent until the child has reached eight or nine years old, so hopefully you'll be able to say the same thing Tommo in several years time!

And BTW, I'll be very surprised to learn there's any correlation at all between pollution and third world (we knew what you meant here) countries.

[TommoPhysicist]

MY baby appears to have lived through it.

So it can't be as bad as the nutters suggest.

A little bit of pollution is part of life in the 3rd world.

Well this nutter says that sadly, respiratory diseases don't really become apparent until the child has reached eight or nine years old, so hopefully you'll be able to say the same thing Tommo in several years time!

Respiratory diseases become apparent in children shortly after final MMR vaccine is administered in western countries.

I'm sure the correlation is a purely random statistic.

Edited September 22, 2012 by TommoPhysicist

[Mapguy]

MY baby appears to have lived through it.

So it can't be as bad as the nutters suggest.

A little bit of pollution is part of life in the 3rd world.

Well this nutter says that sadly, respiratory diseases don't really become apparent until the child has reached eight or nine years old, so hopefully you'll be able to say the same thing Tommo in several years time!

Respiratory diseases become apparent in children shortly after final MMR vaccine is administered in western countries.

I'm sure the correlation is a purely random statistic.

A popular myth! Check it out. Even if taken seriously, what is MMR vaccine and what does it protect children from, and why would it be important to provide it to the population at large? Check that out, too.

[Rancid]

We haven't really noticed any air problems at all.

[Awk]

One more thing to remember is that people who are exposed to various sickness at a early age tend to live longer than those who were over protected and did not build up a immunity fighting system in their youth.

Excellent point. No doubt the immune system of this young rascal, who's parents were perhaps unable to afford a trip to CM during the most optimal periods, but who are never the less doing the best they can, will have an edge over his less fortunate playmates.

Perhaps this is also a lost marketing opportunity to an enterprising young entrepreneur? It's easy to imagine a well organized "build your child's immune system" holiday tour, taking in a few weeks at such immune building places as the north of Thailand in March, north of Ukraine in ... any time whatsoever I guess, and perhaps starting with a short trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, where I understand one might still have the opportunity to catch the immune building benefits of the Ebola virus if one makes haste.

Edited September 22, 2012 by Awk

[goforit]

Anyone who says the pollution is not a problem and doesnt affect them is like a crack cocaine addict that says they dont have a problem. Last year it was beyond horrible an

[junglechef]

As I posted earlier that we go to the beach with our 3 kids to get away. Hua Hin is where we go, small party scene as the King's Summer residence is there and rules are enforced more. It has a very good foreign infrastructure, which make it a nice change from the country setting we usually in here, and since there are so many westerners that have holiday homes here there is an abundance of excellent rental choices. I lived there for 2 yrs so know it well, enjoy the seafood, more quiet beaches etc less than an hour away make nice day trips and a lot of families vacation there for these reasons so it's kid friendly. If you'd like some more info or leads just pm me.

[junglechef]

I use to use http://aqmthai.com/ to check the daily air quality and look at the history but it seems the page is now changed and there is a log in but I nor my Thai GF can figure out how to set -up an account. Can anybody (Mr. Priceless perhaps?) help or suggest another way to get data?

http://firefly.geog.umd.edu/firemap/ is a good one from NASA to see where the fires are

http://www.windguru.cz/int/index.php?sc=116783 and to see which way the smoke is blowing

[MESmith]

I use to use http://aqmthai.com/ to check the daily air quality and look at the history but it seems the page is now changed and there is a log in but I nor my Thai GF can figure out how to set -up an account.

Working for me today. No login.

[junglechef]

Thanks Mr. Smith. Guess I should have been more detailed, I'm looking for past readings as I'm planning my exodus and need to book. I went to the main page, then report, but could only go back to Aug. 1 2102. I'm interested in seeing the bad months from the last few years.

[lizardtongue]

The air quality in CM is bad ALL year round it is just that it is noticeably better/worse in certain months.

[elektrified]

okay - let's approach this from another angle, where would you suggest escaping to that would be suitable for a recovering mother and newborn?

When people suggest 'heading to the coast' where would make a good destination, rather than a crazy party hotspot?

cheers!

Mal

P.S. I'm a Brit and my wife is an Aussie in case you were wondering...

Cha Am

[MESmith]

P.S. I'm a Brit and my wife is an Aussie in case you were wondering...

Why are you having your child in Thailand? Wouldn't it be better in one of your home countries, Aus or UK? Wont you mess up their "full nationality"? I thought that if your child has children outside of Aus or UK their children will not have the right to your nationality? My son was born here in Thailand, but he has UK nationality. But for his kids to be British, he would have to take his wife to the UK to give birth. Please correct me if I've got this wrong.

[chiang mai]

I would go with Cham Am or nearby, but there again there's the issue of a suitable hospital in which to give birth and none springs to mind in that area. Phuket would be a good choice and despite what other posters have said previously about the air quality there, there is very little pollution unless there is heavy burning in Indonesia and the winds are to the North/East (I lived there for four years hence my recommendation is first hand). But Phuket is expensive although it can be, but if it's only for a limited time and cash is not a major concern, perhaps that's a good choice.

[junglechef]

My friend recently had a child at Bangkok Hospital in Hua Hin and was very happy with it which is just down the road from Cha Am and Petcharat (sp?) in Petchaburi, also not far the other way (towards BKK) is well known for their birth clinic.

[Priceless]

I use to use http://aqmthai.com/ to check the daily air quality and look at the history but it seems the page is now changed and there is a log in but I nor my Thai GF can figure out how to set -up an account. Can anybody (Mr. Priceless perhaps?) help or suggest another way to get data?

http://firefly.geog.umd.edu/firemap/ is a good one from NASA to see where the fires are

http://www.windguru....x.php?sc=116783 and to see which way the smoke is blowing

The Pollution Control Department set up a completely new site for air quality on 1 February this year. Unfortunately it does not seem to contain more than one month of 'historical' data, at least I haven't found any either. I maintain my own database on which I base my longer term statistics. This is a bit of a pain, though, and means I cannot add any new locations since data will be missing from 1 February this year to (as of now) 31 July.

If you are looking for historical data before 1 February 2012, you can find it here: http://www.pcd.go.th/AirQuality/Regional/QueryAir.cfm?task=default

For Chiang Mai you will find data there going back to the late 90s (though I tend to doubt the very early data).

/ Priceless

[Awk]

As I posted earlier that we go to the beach with our 3 kids to get away. Hua Hin is where we go, small party scene as the King's Summer residence is there and rules are enforced more. It has a very good foreign infrastructure, which make it a nice change from the country setting we usually in here, and since there are so many westerners that have holiday homes here there is an abundance of excellent rental choices. I lived there for 2 yrs so know it well, enjoy the seafood, more quiet beaches etc less than an hour away make nice day trips and a lot of families vacation there for these reasons so it's kid friendly. If you'd like some more info or leads just pm me.

I also like HH and have been doing the same for some years now, so can second that, though my wife says she feels like she's not in Thailand while there, due to the abundance of foreigners. I can somewhat agree with her on that, but it still seems like a nice place, at least from the viewpoint of an occasional visitor.

Unfortunately this "going away when it's bad" is only practical as long as one does not have children of school age. It's not a big concern for me if my daughter misses kindergarten for one and a half month, but the same is not the case when she in less than two years will be starting school.

Perhaps it is possible to find good Thai schools in CM, but with my lack of knowledge and lack of ability to competently differentiate between them, I do not want to gamble on anything other than one of the International schools. She's been attending kindergarten at one that has a somewhat bad reputation here for post-kindergarten years, but the kindergarten and it's teacher/admin staff gave me a much better impression than the others I visited, so that's where we put her for kindergarten. Unfortunately attending an international school rather than a public or private Thai school means we would not be lucky enough to have the bad period in CM more or less coincide with the school holidays.

I have not yet checked them all, but I would presume all International schools follow more or less the same calendar, having the summer/end of class year break in June-August, rather than according to the Thai calendar, in March-May.

For a while I was considering moving permanently to HH as a backup plan for a way for us to still live in Thailand rather than go back to my own cold country, but after reading some more about what I thought was an international school in HH (BECC), I no longer see that as a viable plan unfortunately.

Edited September 23, 2012 by Awk

[chiang mai]

The Prem school in CM is regarded as one of the finest private schools for its age group in Asia, sorry I don't know their calendar.

[mallymal]

P.S. I'm a Brit and my wife is an Aussie in case you were wondering...

Why are you having your child in Thailand? Wouldn't it be better in one of your home countries, Aus or UK? Wont you mess up their "full nationality"? I thought that if your child has children outside of Aus or UK their children will not have the right to your nationality? My son was born here in Thailand, but he has UK nationality. But for his kids to be British, he would have to take his wife to the UK to give birth. Please correct me if I've got this wrong.

As my wife's parents have lived in CM for the last three years, we're considering coming for bit of career break which maternity leave would allow.

We'll be returning to live in UK, so after three years back child will get citizenship by descent and no issues of passing it on...

[elektrified]

I also like HH and have been doing the same for some years now, so can second that, though my wife says she feels like she's not in Thailand while there, due to the abundance of foreigners.

I don't like Hua Hin and think its a dump, full of foreigners, which is why I go to Cha Am right nearby during the time of year when the air is bad. You will still think you are in Thailand as there are not too many foreigners there.

Last year we were here during part of the burning season and we wore 3M masks for the first time but the baby was still coughing and getting bronchitis and infections. So we eventually left and went to Cha Am.

[junglechef]

My older kids are at a Thai private school and the summer holiday starts in the end of March but they never tell us till a few weeks before

[Dante99]

The Prem school in CM is regarded as one of the finest private schools for its age group in Asia, sorry I don't know their calendar.

Regarded as such by whom?

Any test results to support that regard?

[chiang mai]

The Prem school in CM is regarded as one of the finest private schools for its age group in Asia, sorry I don't know their calendar.

Regarded as such by whom?

Any test results to support that regard?

Nope, not from me. Truth is I didn't even know the place existed and I've been here for nine years. But flying back from Bali recently I was seated next to an expat British lady who has lived on Bali for twenty eight years, was a teacher and is now past the official retirement age hence she is now classified as a consultant and she has permanenet residence there. To cut a long story short, we talked about a range of topics but education was a the primary topic, it was in the course of that discussion she mentioned the Prem school and it's global standing, apparently it is world famous in accademic circles. When I got back home I did a quick search on the web and indeed the references made to it are very impressive. So, I was just passing along information to a poster who I thought could use it, not expecting to be asked to justify chapter and verse!

[Awk]

The Prem school in CM is regarded as one of the finest private schools for its age group in Asia, sorry I don't know their calendar.

Regarded as such by whom?

Any test results to support that regard?

Nope, not from me. Truth is I didn't even know the place existed and I've been here for nine years. But flying back from Bali recently I was seated next to an expat British lady who has lived on Bali for twenty eight years, was a teacher and is now past the official retirement age hence she is now classified as a consultant and she has permanenet residence there. To cut a long story short, we talked about a range of topics but education was a the primary topic, it was in the course of that discussion she mentioned the Prem school and it's global standing, apparently it is world famous in accademic circles. When I got back home I did a quick search on the web and indeed the references made to it are very impressive. So, I was just passing along information to a poster who I thought could use it, not expecting to be asked to justify chapter and verse!

Thanks, and it was appreciated. I too have read some favourable things about it, apart from the cost of it apparently being quite a few notches higher than most others.

I plan to check the calendar of it and the other schools, but would unfortunately be more than a little surprised if there should turn out to be any significant difference regarding when the long break is. It's sad that, afaik, none of the international schools in CM consider adjusting the school year so that the long break coincides with what is the worst period of burning.

Perhaps changing the school calendar is not possible due to other reasons, including that for all I know, all international schools follow the same calendar making it easier to change school for familys coming in on expat-packages from international firms, which I believe is at least the traditional market for most international schools. Only a few of the parents I talked with at the international kindergarten of my daughter came in on expat-packages though, so not sure if that's the case in CM.

Edited September 23, 2012 by Awk

[Awk]

I also like HH and have been doing the same for some years now, so can second that, though my wife says she feels like she's not in Thailand while there, due to the abundance of foreigners.

I don't like Hua Hin and think its a dump, full of foreigners, which is why I go to Cha Am right nearby during the time of year when the air is bad. You will still think you are in Thailand as there are not too many foreigners there.

Last year we were here during part of the burning season and we wore 3M masks for the first time but the baby was still coughing and getting bronchitis and infections. So we eventually left and went to Cha Am.

I can agree somewhat with that, but since we'd already been staying in HH the previous years and had found a nice (though expensive) place that fitted us well vis a vis things for my daughter to play with, it was a lot easier to stay there again rather than spend time looking for something similar in Cha-Am.

Perhaps the main reason was that the place we stayed at is a short walk from Market Village (an Airport Plaza-like thing), where there, for lack of anything better, is a large pay-per-hour playroom where children (age around 3-7 I guess) can play and run around in. Without that, I worry the only children my daughter would get to interact with what so ever would be her mother and father, who are perhaps children mentally, but not physically.

Should anyone know of something similar in Cha-Am, I'd be interested in hearing about it of course.

Edited September 23, 2012 by Awk

[Dante99]

The Prem school in CM is regarded as one of the finest private schools for its age group in Asia, sorry I don't know their calendar.

Regarded as such by whom?

Any test results to support that regard?

Nope, not from me. Truth is I didn't even know the place existed and I've been here for nine years. But flying back from Bali recently I was seated next to an expat British lady who has lived on Bali for twenty eight years, was a teacher and is now past the official retirement age hence she is now classified as a consultant and she has permanenet residence there. To cut a long story short, we talked about a range of topics but education was a the primary topic, it was in the course of that discussion she mentioned the Prem school and it's global standing, apparently it is world famous in accademic circles. When I got back home I did a quick search on the web and indeed the references made to it are very impressive. So, I was just passing along information to a poster who I thought could use it, not expecting to be asked to justify chapter and verse!

It may well be "world famous in academic circles" but that would not be for high academic levels.

If Prem was really excellent and really had excellent academic performance, they would have a waiting list of students trying to get in like the other top IB schools but they do not and in fact they have been struggling to increase enrollment for years.

Beware of the hype about it.