Babies and gondolas

[vesela]

We went to Samoens last week and took our year-old DD up in the gondola every day (from 800 to 1600m, which is where all the skiing starts) with no apparent ill-effects - she didn't cry, although we felt our ears pop (and my sister, with sinus trouble, really felt the difference).

On the day we left, she started with a cold, and only two days later had a ruptured eardrum (as far as I know, it's her first ear infection, too). Now I'm worried that alhough she didn't go in the gondola with a cold, even without one the trips up and down each day were enough to have predisposed her to a burst eardrum.

So I feel guilty... Several ski resort websites quote a French paediatrician saying she strongly advised against taking a child under 3 in a gondola, and I thought that sounded a bit over-cautious. Plus there were lots of other babies around, too. Still, maybe you do have to be cautious with long gondola rides. (I should have breastfed her like in the plane...but with all the ski gear on?)

Does anyone else have a similar experience? OTOH the cold is a very mucousy one, so it could just have been the sheer quantities of snot she produced in that two days that did it!

[vesela]

We were driving home, not flying, btw, so it wasn't that.

I know eardrums heal pretty fast, usually, but I still feel bad, and that I should have been a bit more cautious.

[LIZS]

1600m isn't very high and gondolas so slow that the pressure should ease gradually. Cable cars are more of a problem due to the speed of changing altitude but the subtlety of description may be lost in translation.

Took dd up to well over that height at 4 weeks with no ill effects and much higher since (although we were advised not to take an under 2 up to the Aiguille Midi at 3800 so left her in a creche). Only pressure within the ear at the time affects it, so very unlikely to be associated. It can come on very quickly, once dd had been a bit out of sorts when i ocllected her from playgroup at , took her home and just as we were heading for the dr 2 hrs later she was sick as it burst.

[vesela]

Thanks - that's reassuring. I couldn't believe an eardrum could burst so fast, but maybe they do.

And I would probably have heard a whimper on the gondola if there had been anything. I certainly heard about it from my sister - she was in agony.

[kb101]

I really don't think you should feel bad.

We've just returned from a ski trip. One week before flying out DS2, (11 months) had a bad cold and a perforated eardrum with lots of oozing. The cold went but when I took him to GP for a final check the day before flying another cold was starting (!), and the GP said there was masses of fluid behind his eardum and that it would probably perforate and ooze again at altitude! It did not on either flight, and he was fine at altitude in resort (1000m).

When DS1 was 10 months we took him up a cable car in Chamonix to quite a high altitude and he was totally fine, so we had planned to take DS2 up as well last month but in the end it did not work out with naps etc. I had sinus problems and definitely noticed the altitude going up to 2000m in the cable car.

So, I think that it sounds like your DD was brewing a cold anyway, which would have ended in a perforated eardrum even if you had stayed at home?!

Mine seems to have fully recovered and the GP said that burst eardrums are very very common, if that is of any comfort....