This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

R. Kelly Hill, Jr, MD
Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center Baton Rouge, La

JAMA. 1989;262(4):498.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

I enjoyed the excellent article by Drs Barry and Bia¹ entitled "Pregnancy and Travel," but as a hyperbaricist and scuba diving instructor/ trainer, I am concerned about their discussion on pregnancy and scuba diving. Their statement that "scuba diving to depths greater than 18 m (60 ft) is not considered safe" could be construed to imply that diving to lesser depths is safe for the pregnant diver, a position that is questionable.

Though the studies they quoted on sheep fetuses showed no decompression sickness, sheep are often more resistant to decompression sickness than are humans, and studies involving other animal models have shown the fetus to be more sensitive to decompression sickness." Bolton and Alamo⁵ have shown severe damage to animal fetuses exposed to pressurization, even when the mother did not develop decompression sickness. Human survey data indicate that though the respondents dove to an . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?