Are children safe at high altitudes in Tibet?

On September 20, 2007 17, the New York Times published an article titled "Q&A: Are Children Safe At High Altitudes" to advise travellers not to travel Tibet with childrens below eight years old for healthy consideration. Following is the full text for your reference.

Q:I am planning to go to Lhasa, capital of Tibet, via train with my 3-year-old. The city is at 12,500 feet and the train goes over a pass as high as 16,650 feet. I want to know if it is safe to take children to such a high altitude-Sarla Sharma, Seattle

A: There is apparently no minimum age restriction on taking the new train route into Tibet, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Joshua Kurlantzick, who wrote about the journey in "Luxury Trains: Riding the Velvet Rails" (Aug. 12, 2007) doesn’t recall seeing any children when he made the trip, and there may be good reason for that.

Although the risk of developing acute mountain sickness (AMS), which can cause headache, nausea, lightheadedness or weakness, is probably the same for children and adults, according to Dr. Miriam Laufer, a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases and travel medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, "the challenge of traveling with toddlers is that they will not be able to communicate if they are having symptoms."

The Tibetan plateau is framed by a dining-car window. For luxury travelers, no place now seems too remote for a train trip.
When traveling above 3,000 meters (9,843 feet) it is critical to identify AMS symptoms (which with children can be mistakenly attributed to jet lag, unfamiliar food or another illness) so that you can seek a lower elevation or get treatment before more serious complications occur, like a life-threatening pulmonary or cerebral edema. If your toddler can’t communicate such warning signs, you won’t know to take action.

"My advice is not to take the train to Lhasa with the 3-year-old," Dr. Laufer wrote in an e-mail message, adding that the altitudes of this trip are "well above what experts consider safe for young children." She added, "A safer age to allow children to visit and stay at high altitude is 7 or 8."

For further reading on this topic, check out "Children at High Altitude: An International Consensus Statement" from 2001, by an Ad Hoc Committee of the International Society for Mountain Medicine and available at www.ismmed.org/ISMM_Children_at_Altitude.htm. –