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Annex 3
READERS FORUM
| Fit and forget? Not exactly- nappies, for example, may affect
the way they float. See Water Babies, p42 |
Sharing our problems and ideas...
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Contributions may be edited or condensed though every effort is made to retain the sense and balance of the original - Editor
Water babies
■ After reading PBO 411 and the test on Children's Lifejackets, I wondered what happens if a baby wearing nappies falls overboard in a lifejacket? Here in Sweden where I live, a yachting magazine performed some tests with dramatic results. The popular 'all in one' type of nappy had so much buoyancy in it that a lifejacket, which in other respects has a perfect self-righting capacity, was unable to cope with the floating force of the baby's bottom - so the child floated in perfect balance with its back up and face down underwater.
It takes a long time for the trapped air to escape from the nappy. When the lifejacket finally turns the baby round with its face up and out of water, it's probably too late.
Gunnar Silins
Stockholm, Sweden
One lifejacket manufacturer had to increase their collar size to combat the buoyancy in modern nappies - see PBO 410, p82 - Ed
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