Teaching toddlers to swim could lower their drowning risk

New York, March 3:Enrolling toddlers in formal swimming lessons could be a wise decision, as by doing this you are minimizing their risk of death from drowning, suggests a new research.

In a case-control study, conducted by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, children ages 1 to 4 appeared to have a lower risk of drowning if they had taken formal swimming lessons.

The latest findings may scatter some health professionals’ concerns that swimming lessons could actually increase drowning risk by either exposing children to excessive water or making parents and caregivers less vigilant when toddlers are in and around water.

"Previous concerns have been raised about the potential for swimming lessons to increase the risk of drowning, either through increased exposure to water or through decreased parental vigilance as parents become more confident in their child's swimming ability," the study authors write. However, they believe their findings and those of similar studies reaffirm the belief that swimming lessons may have a protective effect.

To reach their findings, lead researcher Ruth A. Brenner, M.D., M.P.H., of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, Md., and colleagues studied the possible link between drowning and swimming lessons in children and adolescents age 1 to 19 in six states.

The researchers conducted the interviews with the families of 88 children who drowned between 2003 and 2005 in the states of Maryland and North Carolina, 33 counties in Florida, three counties in California, and one county each in Texas and New York.

Brenner and colleagues obtained the death records from medical examiners' and coroners' records from mid-2003 through mid-2005. They also interviewed the families of 213 control children of similar age and gender, and who lived in the same county as those who drowned to death.

The researchers found that out of the 61 children ages 1 to 4 who drowned, 2 or 3 percent had received swimming lessons, compared with 35 of 134 or 26 percent of the same age in the control group.

"From our calculation, we are confident that swimming lessons do not increase drowning risk in this age group and likely have a protective effect," Brenner said in a government news release.

Further, of the 27 children ages 5 to 19 years old who drowned, 7 or 26 percent had taken formal swimming lessons compared to 42 of 79 or 53 percent of the control group.

The study findings also linked drowning to less skill at swimming- with 5 percent versus 18 percent of the children in the 1 to 4 age group were able to float face up for 10 seconds and in the older children 42 percent versus 16 percent were unable to swim continuously for at least a minute.

Though swimming lessons can help, they alone aren't enough to fully protect children from drowning, the researchers cautioned.

"In our study, many of the children who drowned, particularly in the older age group, were relatively skilled swimmers," said Brenner. "Parents and caregivers who choose to enroll their children in swimming lessons should be cautioned that this alone will not prevent drowning and that even the most proficient swimmers can drown."

Brenner and colleagues reported their findings in the March issue of Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.