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To whoever is out there and is interested! from: Marguerite St Leger Dowse Coordinator Men & Women in Diving An overview of the past............Retrospective human studies have tried to determine the effects of SCUBA diving on the unborn child. The largest and most quoted study by Bolton with 145 pregnancies where the respondents had dived took place in the USA, and was published in 1980. She found that there was a 5.5% increase of foetal abnormalities in diving mothers compared with the non diving group within her study. However, this figure was very near to the national US figure for birth defects so wasnt regarded as significant. She called for a long term prospective study to be conducted on pregnant divers and completed her comments by saying that it is the lack of conclusive evidence that warrants concern for foetal well-being. Bangasser in her retrospective survey of 72 diving respondents found no abnormalities reported. More recently Betts (UK) and Bakkevig (Scandinavia) conducted two separate studies, the number of respondents in both surveys being too small to be statistically significant. However, both observed an incidence of foetal abnormalities in the reported dived pregnancies and recommended that if a woman dived whilst pregnant she should limit her diving to shallow depths. Animal studies are conflicting in their findings and may only be relevant to that species. And now in the present ........ The Men & Women in Diving report, is the result of a five year project, by M St Leger Dowse, Dr Phil Bryson, Dr Alex Gunby and Dr W Fife and contains data on 2,250 recreational divers, 46% of them women. The report, apart from containing comparative data dealing with diving histories, profiles, health, smoking, alcohol intake, drugs, and DCI between males and females, also contains information particularly relevant to females. Not only did the project collect useful information concerning diving and the menstrual cycle as perceived by the respondents, but it also gathered valuable data from 142 dived pregnancies. It is the most complete original data on the subject to be published for 15 years. However, definitive conclusions should not be drawn from retrospective studies ...... there are too many unknown factors which may influence the outcome of the pregnancy. The aims, therefore of this element of the report, are to promote debate and awareness of the subject with the hope that it will enable us to gather more definitive data on a long term basis. As a result this work (117 page report) poses some very interesting questions. Reports may be purchased from................. The Diving Diseases Research Centre, Plymouth, England. fax (44) 1752 404127. World Wide Web home page http://www.micromuse.co.uk/ddrc The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS), 10531 Metropolitan Ave, Kensington, MD 20895/2627, USA. fax (1) 301 942 7804. UHMS e-mail CompuServe 74547,274 Dive Log New Zealand, PO Box 55 069, Mission Bay, Auckland 5, New Zealand. fax (64) 9 521 3675. e-mail: divelognz@di*.co*.nz* Christopher M. Parrett, President, Abysmal Diving Inc. Makers of ABYSS, Advanced Dive Planning Software. 6595 Odell Place, Suite G. Boulder CO, 80301 Ph, 303-530-7248, Fx, 303-530-2808 ftp://abysmal.com/users/abysmal http://www.emi.net/gulfstream/abyss/abyss.html
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