To be very cross that school's incompetence may have made DS ill?

[user1498726699]

DS's year had a mini sports day on Tuesday. Parents were invited to spectate in the afternoon so DH and I went along. I noticed that drinks were not brought outside for DC (which has happened before so I had brought one with me) so tried to get DS to drink the bottle of water I brought but he was worried he would get told off so only took a few sips. This was a 2 hour event with no breaks. It wasn't hot but very overcast and sweaty. DS's hair was soaking. I went to the shop and left DH to wait for DS to come out afterwards.

On the way home with DH, DS said that noise/talking was annoying him as his brain hurt. DH put it down to lots of jumping around, gave him a drink/snack and told DS to lay down for a rest. He took himself off to bed and conked out very uncharacteristically! I woke him later as I was worried and he was very upset that his 'brain was hurting' and his body wouldn't work. He was clammy, and I realised that he was probably dehydrated. He then told us that he had not had a chance to drink his breaktime drink as some of the DC were chosen to practice for the afternoon event so he had spent most of the morning running around too. I asked if they were offered water and he said no. The only drink they were offered was after the afternoon event just before hometime when they were told to have a drink after they got changed. So DS did almost 4 hours of quite vigorous exercise with only his breakfast juice at home, a small cup of water at lunchtime, and a few gulps of water from the bottle I took with me.

DCs are only 6/7. Surely it is irresponsible of the school to not make sure small DC are hydrated during sports events in June?

I had to spend Tuesday night trying to get Dioralyte down DS (big battle as he hates it) and he had a high temp for most of yesterday with headache and lethargy so was off school. He is recovered today and has gone to school with a note that consideration should be given to this at future sports events.

AIBU to think this could have been preventable?

This is from Scientific American:

Every hour, a healthy kidney at rest can excrete 800 to 1,000 milliliters, or 0.21 to 0.26 gallon, of water and therefore a person can drink water at a rate of 800 to 1,000 milliliters per hour without experiencing a net gain in water, Verbalis explains. If that same person is running a marathon, however, the stress of the situation will increase vasopressin levels, reducing the kidney's excretion capacity to as low as 100 milliliters per hour. Drinking 800 to 1,000 milliliters of water per hour under these conditions can potentially lead a net gain in water, even with considerable sweating, he says.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/strange-but-true-drinking-too-much-water-can-kill/

So in extreme cases drinking excess water can kill. It won't be the case in most people drinking water at their desk or a child with a bottle of water on a sports day.
Interesting reading but not worth all the hysteria about toxins.

Um - it's not tap water anymore once it's absorbed into your blood/tissues. It's mixed with all the body stuff. Much like the squash...I don't get your point. Is it the chemicals in tap water that are the problem? If so they are in squash too. Is it the water itself? In which case you can't argue we didn't evolve to drink it. I'm pretty sure that when as the major liquid available to hunter/gatherers.

yes, but it isn't tap water any more, once its in squash
All the 'toxins' in water don't vanish once you mix in some sugar you know.

Il try that last sentence again ...that water was the major liquid... etc.

I'm guessing what you mean, User, get a proper name please is that the hunter/gatherer types were drinking rainwater or spring water.
So if I drink Evian or Buxton water rather than tap water I'm ok then.

Here are the ingredients of Robinsons orange squash. Not to be rude about a perfectly good product but I don't think adding this to water suddenly makes all the 'toxins' turn to magic fairy water.

1 - yes the school should have given them more opportunities to drink

2 - it's fair to point this out politely

3 - it's over the top to be "very cross" and accept zero responsibility yourself for dehydration.

4 - despite not knowing how much he had drunk earlier, you could have given him more than a few sips when you saw him

5 - your husband should definitely have given him water when he got home - he only had one child to focus on and care for

6 - liking your child to have a tan and not putting suncream on him to establish that tan is ignorant in my opinion

Are you joshing us user? Salt is NaCl, a different chemical compound from chlorine gas. Squash is still almost entirely H20, just with a few extra fruit acids and sugars mixed in. The chemical properties of the H2O are unchanged. And squash doesn't contain salt, so no better than plain water for keeping the salt balance.

But really, to get water intoxication you need to drink loads, it's not remotely relevant to a child having their water bottle at sports day to stay hydrated. If you were going to run a marathon it would be better to have a sports drink which contains a little salt (or make your own by adding a pinch of salt to squash).

I'm just going to repeat this bit:
a person can drink water at a rate of 800 to 1,000 milliliters per hour without experiencing a net gain in water
This assumes an adult at rest with healthy kidneys.
That adult can drink one litre of water an hour every hour provided they pee.

Is it the water itself? In which case you can't argue we didn't evolve to drink it. I'm pretty sure that when as the major liquid available to hunter/gatherers.

its the water itself, and no, hunter/gatherers did not drink tap water. This hype about the water we drink being "natural" is the invention of the bottled water industry, the water we drink is not natural. Natural water has a lower solute potential, as squash has

All the 'toxins' in water don't vanish once you mix in some sugar you know.

It is water itself that is the health hazard, not something IN the water. So dilute the water, and it behaves differently,

The chemical properties of the H2O are unchanged - the water potential has changed.

it's not remotely relevant to a child having their water bottle at sports day to stay hydrated it is more relevant to children on sports day than anybody else.

So dilute the water, and it behaves differently

So you think a tiny amount of sugar, water and other chemicals are going to cause tap water to be a completely different thing?
Those toxins you are so worried about are still there.

Are you telling me that prehistoric man didn't have taps?

I know that stuff is added to tap water. If you bother to read the actual research done by actual scientists about water intoxication then you won't see any mention of the stuff that is added to water.

Please get a proper user name.

So you think a tiny amount of sugar, water and other chemicals are going to cause tap water to be a completely different thing? it will have a different water potential, behave differently, and affect your body cells differently.

User, this is one properly bonkers theory.

But not differently in any way that will make any great difference to the dangers of water intoxification.

User, this is one properly bonkers theory. no, its basic A level biology

But not differently in any way that will make any great difference to the dangers of water intoxification.

yes it will, you try putting a few of your blood cells in a drop of pure water on a microscope slide, and a few in a drop of squash, then have a look and see what happens.

Have you read the actual science posted upthread? What does blood cells in squash prove?
Do you think that someone could drink gallons of squash with no ill effects unlike gallons of water?

Gosh I can't remember the last time a thread was such a trainwreck.

In the red corner, the "things were better back in my day, when toddlers all smoked 20 a day and went down mines and newfangled nonsense like water and safety hadn't been invented yet" brigade.

In the blue corner, the woowoo anti-science deranged conspiracy theory "I have absolutely no idea what basic English words mean banana kumquat placebo" brigade.

In the yellow corner, the whatever the hell that "show me medical reports proving that small children differ in any way from professional athletes" nonsense was, which I can only attribute to a failed Turing test.

And in the green corner, the righteous OP whose son I am now picturing as a kid of mini-Peter Andre doing a dying swan impression. (And who is probably relieved her thread has been co-opted by the resident flat earther.)

User, I'm fascinated by your logic. You don't seem to be able to decide if it's tap water specifically that's the problem, or mineral water, or all water. You keep flip flopping. Cavemen didn't drink chlorinated tap water no, but they certainly drank plenty of water from streams and things like that, and that is literally what bottled mineral water is.

I've yet to meet single person who's vitamin D deficiency has been resolved by a supplement.
Mine was. So congratulations, you have now. :)

UserWhatever you have taken two unrelated facts:
Body water is "salty" water
Blood cells swell and die when put in plain water
and conflated them, then extrapolated ridiculously from that.

There are indeed lots of electrolytes dissolved in the body water. The body regulates the levels of these solutes ie the Osmolality of the body fluid very tightly. When the electrolyte levels are too high, thirst is triggered and we add water to dilute the body water and correct the electrolyte levels. If the body water is too dilute the kidneys excrete more water than electrolytes to correct the levels.

Whether the water comes from the tap, rainwater, in squash, in food, or anywhere else is irrelevant. It's the water itself that's needed. That's basic biology

user believes that water is so toxic to the body - it causes cells to explode - that it needs to be excreted directly by the kidneys, thus not adequately rehydrating at all.

I've asked her to explain this at a cellular level - with, say, what happens to a 30 kg boy with a functioning renin angiotensin system but she never has.

The part that bemuses me is how the gut where nutrients and liquid is absorbed from, somehow doesn't mix with the ingested water due to said water's toxicity. Maybe there's a little slide that bypasses all the luminal membranes, heading straight to the kidneys?

Sorry - I meant a healthy 30kg boy who is a bit thirsty but not dehydrated who drinks 200ml of water.

How does the gut luminal membrane avoid water absorption? Especially once it's mixed with other gut stuff?

I think she's also conflated extreme physiological situations in which adding glucose does result in faster fluid resorption but for us non marathon runners, non babies and non severely dehydrated people water is fine.

Ive asked her to explain this at a cellular level - with, say, what happens to a 30kg boy with a functioning renin-angiotensin system but she never has.

Hmm somehow I suspect that someone who clearly gets their physiology knowledge from Google doesn't have an extensive understanding of the renin-angiotensin system nolonger