Home Swimming Pool Safety for Children: Prevent Drowning With Supervision and Pool Safety Equipment

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury-related death for children between the ages of one and fourteen in the United States. While swimming pools can be hazardous to the lives of children, it is not necessary for parents to avoid purchasing houses with pools. Swimming pools can be wonderful components of a family residence, since they encourage children to play outdoors and foster the development of a valuable skill. Children can safely coexist in houses with pools as long as parents adhere to several guidelines for swimming pool safety established by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Adult Supervision Can Protect Children Around Pools

Anytime children are in a pool, parents or supervising adults must remain vigilant and never become distracted from the kids in the water. Any adult that is left in charge of supervising children that are swimming should be trained in infant and child CPR. CPR classes can be easily found in any community. The American Heart Association webpage has a search tool that can locate CPR classes across the United States.

When small children with limited swimming ability are in the water, it is critical that adults are within reach at all times. Floaties do not replace the need for adult presence and can be very dangerous since they can create a false sense of security for the child and adult. Even baby pools can pose a threat. Kids must be carefully watched since even shallow water can lead to a child drowning. Finally, toys should always be removed from the pool area following playtime. Toys left by the side of the pool create an unsafe temptation for children.

Child Barriers Enhance Pool Safety

The easiest way to protect children around pools is to have pool safety equipment including both a pool safety fence surrounding the pool and a safety cover over the water whenever the pool is not in use. When installing a pool safety fence, the gates should close automatically and the latch should not be within a child’s reach. The fence should be at least 4 feet high and surround the entire pool. If a side of the house is used to create part of the pool safety fence, it is important that an alarm be attached to any door that is along that portion of the barrier.

Pool safety covers should be used in addition to and not in place of pool safety fences. Pool safety covers come in a variety of styles and can even be automated. In order to qualify as a safety pool cover, a pool cover must be able to hold a minimum of 485 pounds per five square feet. Covers that are marketed as solar pool covers or winter pool covers do not meet this safety standard.

Swimming Safety Skills Keep Kids Protected Around Water

Swim lessons can be started at a very young age. While toddlers cannot develop independence in the water from these classes, they can teach swimming safety techniques that allow children to save themselves by turning in the water and grabbing onto the wall of the pool should they fall in. Learning to swim at a young age can be lifesaving should an accident take place.

By integrating safety skills around the pool with equipment like pool safety fences and safety covers, summers can be worry-free for parents with outdoor pools. These guidelines for swimming pool safety can help adults keep their kids out of harm’s way, and allow pools to remain a fun part of any child’s upbringing.

May 24, 2009 11:56 AM

Guest :

Are we "protecting the fun out of childhood" with pool fences?

Seriously...when I was growing up in the early 80's I could see 3 home swimming pools from my back yard--not a one of them were fenced. Now, in my development of approximately 200 houses I can count on one hand the number of swimming pools.

Why do I blame fences? Because even if they are installed by the homeowner, they are hardly an "easy" solution since they can be prohibitively expensive to a working class family.

While I commonly see the notion tossed about that drowning is the second leading cause of accidental death...I wonder where the data is to support this? In my state, it is actually the 4th leading cause of injury death--following motor vehicle crashes, fires, and homicide ttp://www.health.state.pa.us/pdf/hpa/stats/injury/types.pdf). One might argue that homicides are not intentional, bumping up drowing to third place...but even so, how many children are actually dying by drowning? In the 6 years from 1991-1995 less than 200 children under 20 years old died from drowning--and not all of those died in swimming pools. http://www.health.state.pa.us/pdf/hpa/stats/injury/drowning.pdf

Less than half of all drowing deaths occur in pools, and quite frankly, it is difficult to parse out exactly how many do occur in pools since the data is often presented as something like "pools and water tanks." Even if we assume that all of those deaths occurred in pools...many of them occur while the child has been allowed access to the pool by a consenting adult--so the fence is hardly protective. In fact, as a mother of two small boys, I rather FEAR fences around pools, since I am quite confident that my boys could scale those fences, while even if I could scale them under the adrenaline of fearing for my child's life, they would slow me down in my mission to rescue my child.

I suspect that the decline in drowning deaths that has occurred since 1985 has occurred only because of children completely loosing access to a rather enjoyable part of childhood--the home swimming pool.

Don't get me wrong...I'm all about safety since my profession is as a Health & Safety Specialist...I just wonder sometimes if we really think about the costs of what we are doing.

Jenn
www.knittedinthewomb.com