Don’t change diapers in the dining room or kitchen

Posted on October 1, 2014 by Ben Chapman

As a dad of a couple of messy boys, I’ve changed diapers in weird situations: in parking lots, hockey arena restrooms, on a plane. But never on the table in a fast food restaurant.

According to Gawker and Consumerist coverage, Chad, a dad in the midwest, ripped off a nasty letter to Chipotle (who got it right) after a manager asked him and his wife to stop changing their son’s diaper on a table in the dining area.

Chad, the dad in this incident, admitted in his letter that changing a diaper in a place where people eat is “unsavory,” but he still feels the Chipotle staff showed an “inability/unwillingness to empathize with parents who find [the car] a less convenient alternative even on a beautiful day like yesterday, much less a subfreezing day as we undoubtedly will have in [this region] this winter.”

Typical Chad.

He went on to say that the employees’ horrified reaction toward a dirty diaper on a table—where, again, human beings typically consume food—tipped him off that they must not have kids of their own. If they don’t install changing tables, he says, he’ll be taking his business (and his baby’s business, obviously) to Qdoba.Hard to say which fast-food Mexican chain he’s actually threatening with that one.

A rep for the company sent this rather reasonable response to the complaining father:

I can completely understand that it’s a hassle to find a way to change your daughter, and agree, that there are simply no alternatives as convenient as an actual changing table. We are currently in the process of retrofitting locations with changing tables, but I understand that this is not a very timely solution. … As you can understand it might be disconcerting for other customers to see a child getting changed directly on the tables, and we want to provide all of our customers with an exceptional experience.

Yeah, and kids diapers can leave pathogens all over the tables. Which may not be getting a clean/sanitize between customers. A 2007 outbreak of foodborne illness, leading to 4 hospitalizations, was linked to an employee changing the diaper of a diarrhea-stricken toddler in the kitchen of a Maryland Chuck E. Cheese.

Helpful food safety tip: do not work with raw chicken or meat and change diaper at same time

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Douglas Powell

As the outbreak of Salmonella from those eating a common meal at a funeral in Alabama reached 67, the Alabama Department of Public Health offered WTVA News this advice, “Do not work with raw chicken or meat, and an infant (e.g., feed, change diaper) at the same time.”

Shigella outbreak in Kentucky causes pool scare

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Douglas Powell

A widening outbreak of shigella in northern Kentucky has residents keeping out of public swimming pools.

Eagle Country reports the Northern Kentucky Health Department says they’ve counted 74 cases, six of those in Boone County, as of June 7. The number of cases in an average year is 25.

The health department asks those who have been ill to stay out of the water for two weeks. Pools should also not allow non-potty trained children to be in them until further notice.

Some public pools, such as the Florence Aquatic Center, have closed while they undergo super chlorination.

Don’t eat poop, works for kids

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Amy Hubbell

Our two-year old, Sorenne, has been reluctant to wash her hands lately. Today during a particularly messy diaper change, she reached down to see what was going on, got poop on her index finger, and decided to wipe it on my forearm saying, “Blech, poop yucky!”

I decided this was a good time to try the “don’t eat poop” slogan. I explained to Sorenne, “Don’t put your fingers in your mouth. Poop will make you sick. Don’t eat poop, ok?” She repeated, “Don’t eat poop!” enthusiastically. I added a little explanation that included her favorite French iPod app, “Feed me!” and reminded her that the monster gets sick when he eats something bad. “Turn green!” she chimed in. “Yuck. Don’t like it!”

That’s what happens if you eat poop, Sorenne. You’ll get sick. So wash your hands. And for the first time in ages, she very happily washed her hands with soap.

How not to handle foodborne illness: ‘put an adult diaper and get back to work’

Posted on November 28, 2010 by Douglas Powell

Food service employees working while sick is a recurring theme in restaurant-related outbreaks.

Add this scenario:

An outbreak of diarrhea has decimated the staff of a Tex-Mex restaurant and Godfrey the manager, is on the phone imploring a staff member to come in anyway, even if that means wearing an adult diaper.

“Astronauts wear them. Do you think you’re better than an astronaut?”

The scene is from an upcoming Canadian movie called Servitude, and like the best comedy, has an element of truth.

Godrey is being played by Kids in the Hall/News Radio alumnus, Dave Foley. He’s one of the French fur trappers in the bit below.

South Carolina Splash Pad reopens after crypto case with new rules, guidelines

Posted on August 14, 2010 by Douglas Powell

Wandering around Brisbane on a Saturday afternoon we came upon the splash park and beach at Southbank, close to downtown.

Sorenne did some impromptu playing, and I noticed at least three little kids running around naked. The lifeguard soon happened along and told the parents to at least put a diaper on the toddlers. I asked the lifeguard, was that to prevent little ones pooping in the splash park and he said, he didn’t know, it was just policy.

It’s a good policy.

WIS reports the Splash Pad at Drew Wellness Center is back open after being closed for nearly a month when a child was found sick with a case of the parasite cryptosporidium.

Since then, the city has revamped its procedures for keeping track of how the pad is maintained.

Ray Borders-Gray with the Drew Wellness Center, said,

"After what happened, we took a good hard look how we were doing business. The standard Operating Procedures for the Splash Pad is now written down, all staff have taken a look at it, the standards are now here on site, so if anyone has any questions about what should happen, when it should happen. …

"We are asking people to wear the proper swim attire. We want to make sure the little ones are in the diaper swim pants and we ask that people do not bring their pets to the Splash Pad."

There’s a lot of poop moving around Kansas City transferring Shigella with it

Posted on May 3, 2010 by Douglas Powell

The Kansas City Missouri Health Department reports the metro area has seen some 300 cases of Shigellosis this year – when there usually are a dozen.

Jeff Hershberger said 75 per cent of the nearly 300 cases in the KC area have involved children 10-years-old and younger, and that the bacterium targets daycare centers, adding,

"People are usually good at washing their own hands after changing a diaper. But, they don’t remember to wash the child’s hands."

And those same children can then possibly spread those germs to you at your local supermarket. They can spread those germs by touching produce.

Nuevo Folleto Informativo: Oops, sucedió otra vez: Descuidos al cambiar pañales puede causar enfermedades

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Douglas Powell

Benjamin Chapman

Traducido por Gonzalo Erdozain

Resumen del folleto informativo mas reciente:

– No es tan solo caca  de un bebé tierno; Norovirus, Shigella y Salmonella pueden ser transmitidas a la comida a través de la caca (incluyendo la caca de bebé) y causar enfermedades.

– En el 2007, un brote de enfermedad alimenticia, el cual causo 4 hospitalizaciones, fue vinculado con el cambio de pañales a un niño con diarrea en un Chuck E. Cheese de Maryland.

– Recuerde al mozo de limpiar y desinfectar las mesas luego de ser usadas; no cambie bebés en la cocina(especialmente aquellos con diarrea).

Los folletos informativos son creados semanalmente y puestos en restaurantes, tiendas y granjas, y son usados para entrenar y educar a través del mundo. Si usted quiere proponer un tema o mandar fotos para los folletos, contacte a Ben Chapman a benjamin_chapman@ncsu.edu.
Puede seguir las historias de los folletos informativos y barfblog en twitter
@benjaminchapman y @barfblog.

Someone changes a baby’s diaper on a restaurant table, would you say anything?

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Douglas Powell

One of Amy’s former students and her Canadian hubby are living in Montreal, where Mary documents their wild and crazy antics on her blog, somewhere over the poutine.

While visiting family in Burlington, Vermont, the gang went out for lunch at Al’s Kitchen, where a young father pulled a Britney Spears and mistook a dining table as a diaper changing station.

As described by Evan,

“No blanket, nor cleaning agent was used during or after, it was cheek-to-table (possibly orange carrot paste poop. Minutes later, after a couple of wipes and a pat to the toddler’s bum, a group of unfortunate hungry, hairy, b-ball jersey sportin’ teens sat down and feasted. …

“In honor of food safety, as an observer turned participant, where does my responsibility stand? Should we have chastised the changer? Notified the staff? Where would the fault lay if someone were to fall ill?”

Comments? I would have at least told staff, so they could intervene.

Mary has an entertaining, R-rated version of the event on her blog.

New study says keep poopy kids out of pools — swim diapers not best solution

Posted on May 12, 2009 by Douglas Powell

It was about 105 F when Amy and Sorenne and I touched down in Phoenix yesterday afternoon, to visit family and do some work. Pools – and air conditioning – become increasingly popular in Phoenix and elsewhere as the temperatures climb.

So that means the annual increase of cryptosporidium and other bugs related to exposure in swimming pools. Debate has raged over the past couple of years in various communities: what’s the best way to keep poop out of pools, especially with kids in diapers (I have one of those).

The U.S. National Swimming Pool Foundation marked the emergence of summer by sending out a press release today about some research presented in March by researchers from University of North Carolina-Charlotte that found swim diapers help slow the release of disease-causing germs, but the benefits are short lived.

The researchers measured the amount of microspheres that released from swim diapers worn by children. The microspheres have a similar size (five microns) to that of Crypto. Normal swim trunks, common disposable diapers and reusable diapers with and without vinyl diaper covers were tested. Swimming trunks without a swim diaper of any kind had the poorest performance – almost 90% of the microspheres were released into the water within one minute.

Swim diapers released about 50% of the microspheres within one minute. A vinyl diaper cover placed over a disposable swim diaper slightly improved performance. Still, over 25% were released into the water within two minutes.

"When a fecal accident contains about a billion disease-causing Crypto oocysts, hundreds of millions of oocysts get into the water within minutes," explains Dr. James Amburgey, the lead scientist in the study. "Swimmers only need to ingest about ten Crypto oocysts to become infected."

"This study confirms that parental restraint is the key to preventing Crypto outbreaks – not swim diapers. Swimming with diarrhea is irresponsible because it places other people’s health at risk," reinforces Thomas M. Lachocki, Ph.D., CEO of the National Swimming Pool Foundation(R) (NSPF(R)) who funded the research.

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