Photo by Schwangerschaft on Flickr

The short answer is yes, in moderation.

A Canadian team published “Suggested limits to the use of the hot tub and sauna by pregnant women” in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 1981.

Other research had established that a body temperature of 38.9°C (102°F) can be teratogenic, meaning it can cause birth or developmental defects in an unborn baby. To test this, they recruited 20 women who were of child-bearing age, but not pregnant and measured the time it took for their internal temperatures to rise to this temperature.

Average core temperatures of women of childbearing age who could stay in a bath for the given time.

In hot tubs they found it took:

• 15 minutes in a 39°C (102°F) hot tub,
• 10 minutes in a 41°C (106°F) hot tub,

They then had their volunteers spend time in an 81°C (180°F) sauna. Most women left after 13 minutes, all had left by 25 minutes due to discomfort. None had their core rise to damaging temperature.

They cite a separate study where 60 men and women bathed in a sauna for as long as possible. Of these, 20% were able to remain in the sauna long enough for their core to rise above 39°C (102°F), but data on whether these were men or women was not published with the data.

So you can take hot baths or saunas while pregnant. You just need to be careful to limit your time in them, and be sure to cool down gently and fully before taking another session. Women in Finland regularly bathe in saunas throughout their pregnancy, but limit their time in the sauna to 6-12 minutes, and they stay away from hot saunas.

“But what happens if I stay in a sauna too long?” you may ask. They researched this as well:

“Among 28 dysmorphic infants exposed to hyperthermia between 4 and 14 weeks’ gestation all the survivors had mental deficiency and most had altered muscle tone, including hypotonia, with increased deep-tendon reflexes. More of those exposed to hyperthermia at 4 to 7 weeks had facial defects. In 3 of the 28 pregnancies the hyperthermia was due to a long stay in a hot tub or sauna. In one instance the pregnant woman had remained in a tub that was reported to have a water temperature of 106°F (41.1 °C) for nearly an hour”

So, the consequences can be severe if you’re not paying attention.

[Suggested limits to the use of the hot tub and sauna by pregnant women]

Photo of a traditional sweat lodge by matthewvenn on Flickr

There is no sacrifice—only greater and more magnificent results, wealth, adventure and fulfillment.

James Arthur Ray – On his Spiritual Warrior signup page.

Last week a tragedy ensued in Sedona Arizona leaving two people dead, three in critical condition and 16 more hospitalized after a sweat lodge experience as part of a multi-day “Spiritual Warrior” self-help seminar. Coverage of the incident has ranged from articles in the New York Times to CNN to TechCrunch.

According to the coverage of the event, up to 60 people took a session in a 1450 cubic foot sweat lodge for about 2 hours on Thursday night. Causes of death are still being speculated upon, and unlike your favorite crime show, may not be known for several months. Some things are known:

• There was no temperature monitoring in the sweat lodge, so no-one really knows how hot it may have been.
• The sweat lodge was constructed from plastic tarps and blankets, and does not appear to be well ventilated. 60 people in such a space could have easily brought the oxygen level below safe limits in under 15 minutes.
• A two hour session is quite long for any kind of heat bath. There is a strong possibility that the participants suffered from dehydration and/or heat stroke in this situation.
• The leader of this ceremony, who should by all rights be responsible for the health and well-being of the participants in the sweat lodge ceremony, had other motives, apparently tweeting after the incident, “JamesARay: is still in Spiritual Warrior… for anything new to live something first must die. What needs to die in you so that new life can emerge?”
• The leader of this ceremony was probably not qualified to run this: “You’ll become privy to techniques that I searched out in the mountains of Peru, the jungles of the Amazon (and a few other places I don’t care to recall).”

How can you avoid being part of this same tragedy? Keep a few things in mind:

• Lots of people are willing to say anything to get you to part with your money, and ritualistic experiences are a part of them. Consult the forums at New Age Frauds & Plastic Shamans before signing up for something like this.
• Does the establishment you are going to use to participate in this ceremony have your well-being in mind? If, as Arizona ABC 15 reports, the event is “meant to push people’s personal limits and transcend pain,” but there isn’t a full physical for each participant and a trained medical team standing by, then you can be sure they don’t.
• Heat baths can give real benefits if used with care. However, like most things, if basic common sense is ignored, they can be very dangerous.

That is until you realize that upon hearing this news, the reporter for The Next Web walked over to the Skype offices in Tallinn Estonia for an interview with Sten Tamkivi. He chose the company’s sauna as the setting for this video interview.

The sauna appears to be just off one of those typical web-company break rooms with a pool table and comfy chairs. The interior walls are unique, possibly made using end-grain branches. You can catch another couple of short glimpses of it on Skype’s video tour page.

[The Next Web]

S/S Silla setting the record as the world's fastest marine sauna

Sweden’s first floating hotel, the Salt & Sill recently announced another record: the marine speed record for a sauna at 15.5 knots.

Susanna Hermansson, Managing Director of the Salt & Sill says about the S/S Silla, the official name of the sauna boat:

The target was 15 knots, and we succeeded reaching that speed. It feels great and a bit mad, and of course I’m proud to be the owner of the world’s fastest floating sauna. It now remains to be seen whether anyone is brave enough to challenge our record, and we obviously welcome anyone who wants to take a sauna at 15.5 knots.

The record was recorded in early July during the finals at the Match Cup Sweden in Marstrand. The speed was confirmed via a GPS unit.

The 11.9 x 6.5 meter (39 x 21 foot)  building is made of lightweight fiberglass and secured to a catamaran platform, which is powered by two 160 hp diesel engines from Volvo Penta.  A total of 4.5 million SEK (About US$650,000) has been invested in the sauna boat, which can also be used as a relax area, conference room, exhibition venue, or wedding suite. The sauna can usually be found at its home-berth, adjacent to the hotel on Klädesholmen, near Goethenburg.

Rooms at the Salt & Sill start at SEK 1290 (US$ 185) per night. Bookings can be made by contacting the hotel directly.

[Salt & Sill Hotel] via Passport Magazine

Bath non-users at a Spa in Shanghai. Photo by Thomas Tribe on Flickr

Regulation.” According to their report:

Last month, certain inspectors informed western hotels, which offer luxurious spa and sauna services, that women were no longer allowed to take baths.

Showers? No problem. Baths? No way.

Officials explained that once a month women are afflicted with a certain bodily metamorphosis that could result in “undesired excretions.”

The rules, instituted as China prepares to celebrate its 60th birthday, are seen by the author as the old ways of New China. Other newly established regulations include license requirements for fresh squeezed orange juice, and a prohibition on showing any western news in a public area of a hotel. Keep in mind that TVs on exercise equipment in a public gym are included in this regulation.

[CBC News]

Until now that is. Thanks to the excellent Pods plugin for Wordpress, we’re now able to share more of this information with you.

We’ve added Find a Sauna to our menu.  As of today, our database is pretty light, with only 7 entries, but our goal is to continue loading them slowly until our full listing is available for you to enjoy.

We’ll call this a public beta. It’s far from done yet, and there are still a lot of tasks that we’d like to do on this before calling it “done.” However, we think that you can get some value from this, even in its rough state.

Of course, if you have a favorite sauna, please use our Submit a Sauna link to let us know about it.

If the answer to all these questions is a resounding “Yes!” then the workshop for you is taking place between Rochester and Buffalo NY later this month.

The Cordwood Sauna Workshop is scheduled for September 26-27 in Elba, NY. Tuition is $200. For more information, you can download their brochure [PDF]

If you can’t attend, but are interested in these techniques, you can read the article from the December / January 2000 Mother Earth News where this picture was taken. It is also available in book form: Sauna: A complete guide to the Construction, Use, and Benefits of the Finnish Bath. The author, Rob Roy, runs the Earthwood Building School, which offers seminars worldwide about these techniques.

Additional information about cordwood masonry and other natural building methods is available at Rochester Green Living.

[Rochester City Newspaper] via Google News

They have a 4000 sq. foot Women-only sauna business for sale in the LA area for the low-low price of $320,000! Troubling though that the current owners invested $1,000,000 in the business, and can only generate $60,000 in cash flow.

Syndicated travel columnist Christopher Elliott interviews Erich Schuttauf, executive director of the American Association of Nude Recreation today.

In it, they talk about the AANR’s newest PR term: The Nakation™:

A nakation is a vacation you will want to brag to friends about. I love the term chiefly because it’s so much fun. Anyone who has ever gone skinny-dipping or as a kid romped through the back yard sprinkler in their birthday suit knows. Nude recreation is fun.

This sounds like a good poll question:
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One of Finland's new Sauna Stamps

For those of you who are enthusiastic about both saunas and philately, Finnland Post has just issued the stamp set for you. Rather than rewrite it, we’ll let their press release do the talking.

“When I chose the pictures for the Sauna booklet, I aimed for Finnishness and the authentic sauna atmosphere,” says the designer of the booklet, Päivi Vainionpää. “The first stamp shows a moment before a sauna. The sun is going down, there’s a fresh birch whisk in the bucket on the jetty, and soft towels await the bathers,” as she describes the scene. The second stamp shows the bathers actually in the sauna, and the third stamp depicts an idyllic shoreline sauna in its natural setting. The fourth and fifth stamps show sauna atmosphere inside and out: a sauna whisk bathes in the sunlight on a log wall, and inside the sauna the sunshine lights up the bathing place through a window.

The Sauna stamps include microscopic scent capsules. When the stamps are rubbed, the capsules burst and spread a pleasing aroma of birch leaves.

Checking their website, the stamps were supposed to have been released on May 6. As of today, we can’t find a link to buy these on their online stamp shop. It looks like the booklet will cost € 4.00 (approx. US$ 5.35)

[Finland Posti] via newstamps.blogspot.com