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Womb Within

Prevent drownings (plus a DVD give-away)

by Marijke on June 2nd, 2008

The best time to start thinking about safety for you baby is before your baby is even born. There are many issues to think about from what types of car seats to use, baby proofing your home, and how to manage getting groceries while carrying your baby around.

One huge, huge issue to think about is children drownings and near drownings.

Did you know:

  • According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 3,582 fatal unintentional drownings in the United States, averaging 10 deaths per day.
  • From the same resource, more than 1 in 4 fatal drowning victims are children 14 and younger. For every child who dies from drowning, another four received emergency department care for nonfatal submersion injuries.
  • Near drownings: can cause brain damage, resulting in a permanent loss of basic functioning or permanent vegetative state.

From the CDC: In 2005, of all children 1 to 4 years old who died, almost 30% died from drowning. Although drowning rates have slowly declined, fatal drowning remains the second-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death for children ages 1 to 14 years.

Where do these drownings and near drownings happen?

Again, according to the CDC fact sheet (emphasis is mine though):

“Children under 1year most often drown in bathtubs, buckets, or toilets. Among children ages 1 to 4 years, most drownings occur in residential swimming pools. Most young children who drowned in pools were last seen in the home, had been out of sight less than five minutes, and were in the care of one or both parents at the time.”

The only surefire way to prevent a drowning is constant, constant, unrelenting supervision. That means NEVER leaving your child near a pool or a lake where he or she can drown. That means NEVER leaving for just a moment to get something or answer the phone. That means never letting your guard down.

But, we’re human - and sometimes we do. That’s why we be as safe as we can with fences and gates, all ways to try to keep the situation safer.

And then, there’s the unexplainable and the mistakes that we make. Sometimes that happens and our child ends up in the pool, despite out best intentions.

The American Academy of Pediatricians says that swimming lessons for water safety, under the age of 4 years, is not recommended. However, Mind York and her partner Marlene Bloom feel strongly otherwise. They founded a program called Baby Otter Swim School, Inc. and the Turn, Kick, Reach program, or TKR. TKR is the core water survival skill taught at Baby Otter Swim School.

When I interviewed Mindy, she made an excellent point that I think opponents of early baby swim lessons are not taking into account. Swimming programs like Turn, Kick, Reach are NOT to teach a child how to be safe in a pool by him or herself. These programs are to add a layer - among many other layers - of safety to increase the safety around a pool.

No parent is perfect. As we develop these layers of safety around our children, there are times when the layers fail, either through no fault of our own, or by our human frailties that include forgetfulness.

If we have our all our safety features in place and they all - by happenstance - fail and your child ends up in the water - wouldn’t you want to know that your child has a better chance of survival because of instinct that may kick in from having had the safety swimming lesson?

Mindy emphasizes that this is just one of many tools to keep your child safe - it is NOT a replacement for supervision and the many other safety layers you need.

swimmingDVDBecause of the need to spread the word of drownings and near drownings, Baby Otter Swim School has put together a DVD called Is Your Child’s Life Worth Ten Minutes?

“This ten-minute DVD provides life-saving pool and home safety tips to parents. From not answering the phone while your child is in the pool to ignoring the door bell when your child is in the tub, this DVD’s message is essential.”

I encourage you, so strongly, to get this DVD. It can save a child’s life. It can save YOUR child’s life.

~~~~

Please note that the give-away is over and a winner has been picked.

And the drowning prevention DVD goes to….

 

I have one copy of this DVD to give away to one of my readers. If you would like to win a copy of Is Your Child’s Life Worth Ten Minutes?, just leave your name and how I can reach you and, in the comment section, tell me if you are pregnant now, if you have children, if you would like this because of other children in your family - or any reason why you would like the DVD. This give away will run for two weeks, from today until June 15th at 11:59 pm. At that point, I’ll put all eligible entries into a randomizer to draw the winner.

Good luck!

Image: Baby Otter

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