Pregnant wait out of sun

[Southerndisney]

Thank you cobright. Your explaination was amazing.

 

[crashbb]

There are major differences between walking in the sun and standing in the sun. I suspect the OP considered these differences self-evident but people who do not have more than a passing annoyance at sunlight often are blissfully unaware.

How much detail should I go into ... I'll start heavy and lighten up as I go.

Everyone should know by now that absent sunblock or (ick) sunscreen, sunlight doesn't damage skin until the skin cells are exhausted of the anti-oxidants the body supplies. It is true, with high doses of anti-oxidants you can prevent burns and cellular damage from the sun. Exercise is necessary to cycle those anti-oxidants into the skin cells as they are depleted. Standing still results in getting burns, tanning, cellular damage, and the kinds of metabolic reactions that cause problems in those with sunlight sensitivities sooner than if you are walking.

Less known is that even with sunblock, your skin-cells and body as a whole is being depleted of anti-oxidants as a result of sunlight exposure. You are also creating all manner of photo-chemical reactions and the product of these reactions more or less require movement to distribute them throughout the body. Build-ups of such things as vitamin-D can happen by standing still in the sun. Normally not a problem, for some it's a trigger.

Let's talk about thermal-dynamics. Overheating caused by exposure to sunlight can actually be worse standing still. This is rookie level physics. That .75-1.5MPH walking speed does create a net themal gain across the whole body BUT it causes a thermal cooling effect local to the exposed skin. the Skin, our largest organ, is instrumental to regulating all sorts of body chemistry and waste and that function is diminished by overheating. I have enjoyed two pregnancies (my wife was pregnant so I got to enjoy them) and I suspect that overheating, particularly of the skin, is as much of an issue for the OP as actual sun exposure.

Then there is the matter of overall exposure vs. localized exposure. It's far worse to expose your skin cells to sunlight for 30 minutes straight then shade for 30 minutes than to expose a skin cell to 5 seconds of sun then 5 seconds of shade over and over and over for an hour. This is what walking does, it puts us into motion and breaks up our whole body exposure as well as the localized exposure.

Lastly there is the assumption that you spend more time walking through the park than waiting for a ride. On many trips the average wait line for the park's rides near one hour. The average walk time between rides is much less.

Now Disney is usually pretty good about park design and keeping us out of direct sun, but especially at higher crowd times like ... now, you can still find yourself waiting in the direct sun for 20-30 minutes. If I traveled like an average guest, even with all the SPF, I would be in blisters waiting in line in the sun after 10-15 minutes; dead in 40.

All that said... and I don't know how much help it can be now... but I would encourage the OP to work towards traveling like the Bedouin do. Fully covered with flowing breathable garments.

ETA: When I speak about anti-oxidants I'm not using it in the new-age pseudo-hippie sense. It starts to sound like something you read in an herbal medicine flyer at the yoga salon. That's not my thing at all. This is the wisdom of a decade marching through foreign sand.

Can you post some links to scientific papers backing up your claims? I've tried searching, but cannot find anything (must not be using the right search terms). Definitely not what I've what I've been by my physicians when told to avoid the sun - if anything, I've been told the opposite (that overheating by exercising will make the effects of sun exposure worse). So, I'd be really interested in reading about this - might make changes to what I do to avoid the sun.

BTW - I've never waited 100 minutes for a ride - much less 100 minutes outside/in the sun (which would be the only relevant time for this discussion) or as an average.

 

[Goddesstree]

Here at WDW right now, and there is much more sun exposure walking around the parks than in any of the queues I've been in (and I've been in 90% of them, it's our 4th day). I'd also appreciate links to cobrights' claims.

Nemo show at AK is the only queue I've seen without shade. Every single other queue is covered. The line at Space Mountain can extend outside, but a pregnant woman shouldn't be on that anyways, right?

I second the suggestion to use an umbrella, and if the heat is an issue, she should limit her time in the parks for the safety of the child and mother.

 

[cobright]

Can you post some links to scientific papers backing up your claims? I've tried searching, but cannot find anything (must not be using the right search terms). Definitely not what I've what I've been by my physicians when told to avoid the sun - if anything, I've been told the opposite (that overheating by exercising will make the effects of sun exposure worse).

I will find some source material for you. My understanding comes from the training I received prior to and while spending a good deal of time marching through the desert (I'm not a soldier I don't mean to hint around at that but still I end up over there). In any case your doctor probably disagrees with me less than it may seem. I may not have been as clear as necessary on this point. I didn't mean to say that exercising will produce a net cooling effect.

I was specifically addressing the temperature of the skin but there are instances where exercise can result in a net cooling effect as well. There's a lot going on in this regard and I simplified (overmuch it seems).

Your body temperature is raised by internal and external factors. Internal being the expenditure of calories through exercise and other metabolic functions (thinking creates heat). External being a hot sunny day or bath or whatever.

How much heat your body produces and how much heat it absorbs are fairly simple to account for. But that is just half of the story in determining your body temperature. A much bigger deal is how quickly are you shedding heat.

So under some circumstances, namely high humidity and low ambient wind, your body's primary method of shedding heat is crippled. In this case, the 1-1.5mph 'breeze' produced by walking that speed is enough to dramatically reduce skin surface temperatures.

In most cases, moving at this very conservative pace does not require a caloric expenditure anywhere near the exothermic gain that comes from that breeze. In these cases a net cooling effect occurs. If you are obese or otherwise lugging a lot of extra weight, the caloric expenditure might rise to the point where there is a net heating effect (I haven't done the math but it would make sense), but at this pace it should always provide a cooling effect local to the skin surface.

At a certain point additional exertion will not provide enough additional airflow to get even a localized cooling effect, but that's really outside the scope of my comments. My (seeming) obsession with skin surface temperatures goes back to keeping the skin healthy and able to protect the rest of the body from solar radiation, and thermal heat hinders your skin's ability to do that.

BTW - I've never waited 100 minutes for a ride - much less 100 minutes outside/in the sun (which would be the only relevant time for this discussion) or as an average.

My point in bringing this up is more to the issue of spending more time walking between rides then standing in them. In most cases the lines are shaded pretty well at Disney but in high crowd days some can extend beyond the shaded areas and stick you out in the sun for some portion of the total wait time.

 

[Piper]

Your post might have merit if it were heat that was bothering the person, but if it is the rays of the sun, this isn't going to work. Many autoimmune disorders are triggered by the ray of the sun. I develop a malar rash sometimes after only a few minutes in the sun. The heat bothers me, too. The main culprit however, is the sun itself. This is why I resemble a mummy when I am out in the summer and why I severely limit my time out.

 

[cobright]

Your post might have merit if it were heat that was bothering the person, but if it is the rays of the sun, this isn't going to work. Many autoimmune disorders are triggered by the ray of the sun. ... The heat bothers me, too. The main culprit however, is the sun itself.

Actually, I mentioned the issue of heat as ancillary to my suggestion that standing still in the sun is very different to walking in it.

I too have issues with sunlight, search my posts and you will the term "dress like a bedouin".

What I tried to get into earlier is one of mechanisms solar radiation uses to damage skin cells and otherwise wreak havoc on the human body. The sun's rays include uv radiation (types a and b). UV-b rays cause damage to cellular dna which in turn (if not repaired) can lead to cancer.

The body protects itself by producing melanin, and in the short turn, anti-oxidants to repair the damaged dna and reduce free radicals. It is when the body can no longer supply anti-oxidants to the skin cells that burning occurs.

Developing blisters from short term exposure to sunlight is usually caused by an overzelous immune responce to this cellular damage. Not always, sometimes it is caused by reaction to the many bodily reactions to sunlight like the production of vitamin d. A way to test this is to check your reaction when filteri.g only the uv-b out of sunlight hitting you. UV-a does not provoke the same level of dna damage. Under just uv-a I will eventually burn but under uv-b I blister within 10 minutes.

The reason skin temperature is brought up is that skin that is physically hot is not operating as it should. Skin is an organ and one of its jobs is to move body chemistry arround and remove waste chemistry. Anti-oxidents are necessary to prevent damage from solar radiation and hyperthermic skin will not do that as well.

Test this by eating large doses of lycopene (following safe levels) and test exposure to the sun. I can prevent burns and reactions with anti-oxidants alone. Unfortunately a medicine I am on reacts poorly to vitamin d, so I dress like a bedouin.

 

[crashbb]

My point in bringing this up is more to the issue of spending more time walking between rides then standing in them. In most cases the lines are shaded pretty well at Disney but in high crowd days some can extend beyond the shaded areas and stick you out in the sun for some portion of the total wait time.

I look forward to reading the articles.

Again, this point might have merit if the claim was your spend more time walking between rides than in standing in line. That was never the claim (and is irrelevant to the discussion). The claim is that you spend more time in the sun when walking between rides than when standing in line. Which, even if some lines to extend beyond the shaded areas, is true.

 

[SueM in MN]

I would also be interested in reading the articles. Some of it may be truthful in theory, but make very little difference in actual life situations.

And, as was pointed out by others, sun exposure was the issue bing asked about, not heat.

I look forward to reading the articles.

Again, this point might have merit if the claim was your spend more time walking between rides than in standing in line. That was never the claim (and is irrelevant to the discussion). The claim is that you spend more time in the sun when walking between rides than when standing in line. Which, even if some lines to extend beyond the shaded areas, is true.

And, in most cases, the part that extend out into the sun is a line of people, but is not part of the cordoned off line.
So, someone can wit outside of the line and join their party when they do get to the actual separated off/marked line.

 

[cobright]

Again, this point might have merit if the claim was your spend more time walking between rides than in standing in line. [...] The claim is that you spend more time in the sun when walking between rides than when standing in line. Which, even if some lines to extend beyond the shaded areas, is true.

Yes and no. What I was trying to get to is that the topic of harmful sun exposure must include quality as well as quantity of sun exposure.

One important quality is the duration of each exposure event. I mentioned the example of a 30 minute in sun plus 30 min in shade event being very different than spending an hour alternating between sun and shade at 5 minute intervals. To an individual square centimeter of skin, it is much more like the latter when a person is walking around.

A more accurate description of this would be to say that when predicting the harm from solar exposure to some systems of the body (e.g. cellular famage to skin cells) it is more useful to look at a sliding temporal average than a daily total exposure.

This is intuitive. To illustrate by analogy: think of solar damage as a small bucket being filled with water. When the bucket is full a skin cell receives permanent damage to its DNA. But, the body has defense mechanisms in the form of several holes it can open to let the water out. For example it can produce melanin and anti-oxidants. As long as you are able to reduce your exposure intensity and duration so that the bucket never fills all the way up you will avoid many harmful effects of the sun.

What this means is that when considering the 20 minutes someone might spend waiting in the sun in line, it doesn't mean anything to say that in the broader picture of the day such an occurrence may only happen once or twice. Harmful exposure to the sun doesn't happen based on total minutes per day spent in the sun.

In crudest terms relating to duration of exposure it's actually based on total number of seconds out of every 1-4 seconds each individual skin cell remains exposed to the sun. Again, this is why walking in the sun can result in less harmful exposure than standing still in the sun.

 

[Piper]

Then why has simply walking from my car into the doctor's office (a few seconds at most) resulted in the dreaded butterfly rash for me? Unfortunately, sometimes ANY exposure to the sun can be bad! Sometimes, it doesn't bother me. I know most people "don't get it" and I wouldn't want them to if the only way were to actually experience what I do.

I just don't want people who are really affected by the sun to think that they won't experience problems if they just keep moving or move in and out of the sun. For some of us, it just doesn't work that way--wish it did. Some of us just don't have the defense mechanisms. My body attacks itself instead of whatever the problem is. For example, a cut on my hand could result in my wrist and elbow swelling and being painful. That is why it is called an auto-immune disorder. My body attacks itself.

 

[winterwhite]

The truth is that for the best health, ANY person should cover up during peak UV exposure times.

That means long sleeved technical fabrics, a wide brimmed hat, and physical sunscreens on exposed skin.

Reducing heat is technically easier than reducing sun exposure. You can drink cold water, use cooling towels, apply ice to high heat areas such as armpits, between the legs in cases of extreme heat, or create a breeze with a handheld fan or even a brochure if needed.

These are all things that are available in the parks, or that you can bring with you. When we go in September, I always bring a small cooling lunch bag with two frozen water bottles in it as I am heat sensitive. I can soak a cooling towel with them, drink them, or place them on the back of my neck/underarms, etc to cool down.

Protecting yourself from sun in the WDW parks is much, much harder but for most, is is the heat that makes you feel sick.

 

[cobright]

Some light reading (that's a pun you know):

• http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol55/volume55.pdf A report by the WHO that covers some of the ways Ultra Violet Radiation (UVR) exposure is discussed or measured as well as some on the mechanism for UVR harm.
• http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/6106470-Syh9i7/6106470.pdf A bit more technical, this discusses how the genetic damage to cells occurs. It also describes typical dna repair methods and times (2.5 minutes) genetic repair is one of those holes in the bucket I mention.
• http://www.pnas.org/content/95/17/9738.full This discusses the creation of free radicals and oxidant and how those cause direct and indirect cellular damage. This is important because the availability of anti-oxidants will mitigate these agents.
• http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/content/6/3/298.full Written with the lay reader in mind this is a nice overview.
• http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-1097.1982.tb04362.x/abstract If you have access to a university academic database, this is a good read.
• http://tchie.uni.opole.pl/freeECE/S_16_3/Barbusinski_16(3).pdf This is a thick plod but covers a particularly dangerous solar reaction that causes harm or mayhem throughout the body by introducing a kind of long lived free-radical.

What the reading will show is that there is a very small window during which solar exposure can be mitigated and/or the resultant damage repaired. Seconds to minutes depending on just what you are looking at.

A body in motion is going to provide individual skin cells with several short breaks in the UVR exposure over the course of the entire person's exposure. A body at rest will afford fewer of these breaks in continuous exposure. Like a 400 degree potato right out of the oven, as long as you keep tossing it from hand to hand neither hand gets burned.

A body in motion, generates a pseudo-breeze that serves to keep the skin cool and functioning as designed. Under some circumstances this can even result in a net cooling effect for the whole body. Even if it only helps the skin, I don't need to track find you journal entries showing that hyper-thermic skin does not perform its job of delivering body chemistry and removing waste, do I?

The question I was responding to asked this "Is there something different about the sun in the line area vs the sun in the rest of the park?" The answer is yes, there is a different condition produced by walking through the park on a sunny day and standing in an unshaded area for extended periods on that same day.

 

[crashbb]

The question I was responding to asked this "Is there something different about the sun in the line area vs the sun in the rest of the park?" The answer is yes, there is a different condition produced by walking through the park on a sunny day and standing in an unshaded area for extended periods on that same day.

And not one of the first three papers you posted address that - at all. I did find the genetic stuff in the first paper interesting given that I did work with IARC on the p53 gene (though not to do with skin cancers).

 

[cobright]

Then why has simply walking from my car into the doctor's office (a few seconds at most) resulted in the dreaded butterfly rash for me? Unfortunately, sometimes ANY exposure to the sun can be bad! Sometimes, it doesn't bother me.[...]

I just don't want people who are really affected by the sun to think that they won't experience problems if they just keep moving or move in and out of the sun. For some of us, it just doesn't work that way--wish it did.

I get it. I didn't mean to suggest that intermittent exposure to the sun can't hurt you, only that the nature of what is happening is different.

For certain types of harm that results from UV exposure such as cellular genetic damage that can lead to cancers or reactions to the body's UV defense mechanisms, intermittent exposure over the same period of time will produce less harm than a single cumulative dose of that same exposure.

I get it from both ends (pardon the horrible term), medicine I take to remove heavy metals from my body also reacts to UV in a way that provokes an immune response (hives, blisters, or something rather colorfully called a cytokine storm). I also get wicked sick trying to process vitamin D produced by exposure to the sun.

Protecting yourself from sun in the WDW parks is much, much harder but for most, is is the heat that makes you feel sick.

For most people the heat is a much more likely killer. Something else I was trying to get across is that hyperthermia and especially hyperthermic skin makes you more susceptible to harmful solar exposure.

Most people seem to regard their skin as a sort of permanent leather jacket. A membrane or barrier to the outside world. But it's our largest organ and it serves some very important and complex functions and when it gets hot it stops doing them.

 

[cobright]

And not one of the first three papers you posted address that - at all.

The first paper covered how the exposed skin is irradiated differently based on relative position. It is an element of rather primitive logic to conclude that a skin cell on a walking person will experience more fluctuating levels of UV radiation than a person standing still.

The second paper discusses genetic repair of UV damaged dna. If there is a pace that the sun damages cells and a pace at which the body repairs them, one must conclude that permanent cell death (or worse) is more likely when the exposure to UV is constant.

A study I took part in (as a civilian) is covered a bit here: http://asp.eurasipjournals.com/content/2010/1/483562

The conclusions and briefing regarding this study are where I get my practical understanding of the subject. Specifically, what we found was that our soldiers had a much MUCH lower Minimal Erythema Doses (MED) when standing at post compared to those on the march. They controlled for everything; skin tone, diet, height, weight; everything.

Practically speaking, we were told, when designing shift schedules and personal support, to provide breaks from the sun to those at post at-least as often as those on patrol. Keep in mind, the soldiers on patrol were not walking through animal kingdom, or sitting under a kumquat tree in the Morocco showcase. They were under unrelenting desert sun reflected back by white concrete or sand.

As a policy analyst, this was the experience I had and the information I used to keep these men and women healthy. That was years ago and my academic resources are notably diminished but if you are interested in the subject I suggest you do a thorough "State of the Field" assessment on MED and MMD.

 

[PatMcDuck]

On a less complicated note, I think I will write to WDW about that Nemo show queue at AK. It truly is the WORST line for sun that I can think of in any park. Add to it the feeling that AK is the hottest park in the summer anyway.

While DD has the autoimmune disease that flares in the sun (it is a skin/muscle disease), DS is in a Convaid chair with very fair skin. I feel awful having him wait in that line, too. It is just awful. And he loves that show (he has Downs and Autism, loves the music).

 

[Goddesstree]

cobright, that's a big stretch to call the first article a study on positional reaction to the sun and taking it to mean a body in motion, when they talked about latitude, IMO - unless I missed the section on that? What section talks about a moving body vs a stationary one?

One good thing about the queues at WDW is that very few are stationary, out in the sun style queues.

 

[cobright]

Maybe 5.3. i'm not looking atm, but it spoke about arriving at different doses of radiation based on a number of factors including (inter alia) cultural, geographical features (bodies of water to reflect sunlight), an reletive position of the body to the ecposure.

And i'm not pointing to published research so that you can read their conclusions. I'm pointing to research where that work in part supports my own thesis. If there was a single work that addressed this specific question I would much like to point to it whether it supports my premise or not.

As it happens, MED can be calculated using objective scientific tests, and exposure can be measured very precisely using a simple circuit comprised of a $3.00 solar cell and a $10 microprocessor (like an arduino).

My professional education is in economics (then international relations and international commerce) so from a soft science perspective I learned to go to empiric research early.

I can send you the design or the device itself if you lime. Measure and plot against time solar exposure to your forearm top, shin, side of neck, and top of head. All except the last position will show a slightly smaller total dose of sunlight. But when computed into a time-slide average to account for cellular repair, the measurmenta taken while walking are significantly less. Not orders of magnitude but upper single digit percentages anyway. Enough to effect time it takes to recieve a harmful dose of sunlight (med)

The effects of sunlight on a moving (walking anyway) person are different than those of a person standing still.

Which is why, like the OP asked about, when a person would be abnormally harmed by exposure to the sun resulting from an unusually long wait in an unshaded cue, in my opinion anyway some reasonable accomodation for that person seems justified. If that means the lady (in this case) sits on a bench till the rest of her party is through the door into less exposed area thwn great. Where that is not practical, a place to set under the roof should be found.

I'm speaking very broadly here but, it seems the kneejerk reaction is to assume that a person like this wants to jump cue and ride the rides before you. I've seen the GMA video, I know people game the system. But instead of reacting with the equivalent of "sucks to be you, the world is tough all over" leave the Ayn Rand behind and try to create a solution that meets everyone's needs.

 

[Gracie09]

But you are forgetting that's there are very few (nemo is the only one that comes to mind) that does not move and is in the direct sun. So for the op it really is a nonissue because she is exposed to more sun between rides and waiting for parades than waiting in line for shows or rides.
Although this thread has gone on so long she has probably given birth and the kid is ready for school.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Which is why, like the OP asked about, when a person would be abnormally harmed by exposure to the sun resulting from an unusually long wait in an unshaded queue, in my opinion anyway some reasonable accomodation for that person seems justified.

In the extremely rare instances where a guest with standing-in-the-sun issues may encounter a line substantially in the sun, being self-protective would be the first, common sense response. As several others have advised, a parasol/umbrella makes complete sense.