The Health Canada warning flashed onto my computer news-feed this past Wednesday morning: The national agency was making specialists available to the media to discuss the recent spike in water bed-related injuries to children.
One — Oh my goodness, water beds are killing kids.
Two — Did I just get a press release from 1987?
I wrote those same words in an email subject headline to my colleagues across our northern Alberta newspaper offices, attaching a copy of the press release.
Water bed risks for children? In 2023? This is crazy.
I thought the only risk to children from water beds right now were likely more of a psychological one if their parents still had a water bed. But then I thought of my own teenage years. Yes, I did have a water bed. I also had a room wallpapered by my own choosing that was black with thin golden vertical stripes. The water bed was like sleeping on a boat rolling on the waves. (The wallpaper made it seem like it was a dark night on the ocean).
I remember how the water bladder / mattress was nice and cold on my skin when I pulled away the bed sheet on those hot summer nights. And as I thought of that cold, polyurethane water bag, it dawned on me just what this Health Canada danger advisory could be referencing ... Thinking back, I remember that every so often, my arm or leg ... once, my head ... would get wedged between the side-rail or headboard and get pulled under the undulating bladder like some kind of rolling, plastic undertow. So yes, I could see how there 'could' be a danger to children... if they were sucked underneath. But still — how is this a critical concern today — more than 35 years after I thought black walls were equally as cool as zero back-support-from a wavy Halcyon "Free Flow" water-filled mattress? I admit I was a bit puzzled by the Health Canada warning.
I read the opening line of the advisory again:
"Consumer Product Safety Specialists at Health Canada are available to speak on the recent Health Canada advisory related to water beads and the risks associated with them for children.
(You might see it... but I still didn't.)
I was about to contact one of the assigned Health Canada specialists and ask if leg warmers, Ford Pinto's and Cabbage Patch Kids were next on the warning list when I noticed an extra letter in the word 'beds'. Now there's not too many letters in that word, as you know, so the extra one should have been easy to spot to a seasoned journalist. Well — we all make mistakes.
Beads. Water Beads — not beds. Beads... Well that makes more sense.
The little tiny water-absorbing gel beads can grow to 1,500-times their size when added to water. So obviously, they can be very harmful if swallowed or put in the ears or nose.
Water beds, by comparison — now that I've properly read the advisory — don't seem quite as dangerous.
I have no real excuse for my reading error... Hey — Wait a minute. Maybe I do. As I'm now looking back on how I spent most nights of my formative teenage years, a lot of them apparently took place in some sort of isolation tank of my own making, bobbing and rolling, back and forth on a water-filled mattress, staring at black walls. That can't be good for a kid. Perhaps it left some long-term effect on me.
Maybe water beds should come with a warning.
The full water bead advisory from Health Canada can be found on the government website.
