Parents, it's a frightening statistic, but drowning is the number one cause of death for children under the age of five in Florida. One program teaches babies how to survive in the water. Details in today's Parent to Parent.
WATCH THE VIDEO
WSVN -- A few weeks ago 2-year-old Jaylen Whipple disappeared from his Homestead home. His body was later found floating in a nearby retention pond. Could tragedies like this be prevented?
Dr. Harvey Barnett: "A comprehensive drowning prevention strategy for infants and young children is sorely needed in the United States."
Dr. Harvey Barnett founded the Infant Swimming Resource.
Dr. Harvey Barnett: "Literally, the distance that children drown from safety is three inches, and that's the distance from face-down in the water to face-up."
Instructor Kate Eckert shows us how it works with 10-month-old Camilo Villalba.
Kate Eckert: "So a 6-month-old to a 12-month-old, an infant who is not yet walking, is going to learn how to hold their breath, turn from face-down to face-up into a floating position where they can breath and relax until help can get to them."
It's called sensory motor learning. Essentially, through repeat training, babies learn what to do if they fall in the water.
Kate Eckert: "What you want to do is get them in a structured environment where they learn water on the face means close your mouth and open your eyes."
And it works: One little boy fell in the water but rolled over and floated until he was found.
Toddlers also get lessons. Two-year-old Kaylee and Andres go one past floating and learn to swim to safety.
Kate Eckert: "So they're going to be able to swim head-down in the water, holding their breaths, and when they need to rotate onto their backs where they can float and breathe rest for a couple seconds and the flip back over and continue swimming and combine those swimming and floating skills until they get to safety."
But this isn't your usual swimming lesson. It takes commitment. Kids have to attend 10 minutes a day, five days a week for about six weeks. Parents are not allowed in the pool during a session, but it's important for them to be there.
Camilo's mom Maria admits at times it seemed a bit scary but thinks every parent should do it.
Maria: "It will also give you some peace of mind because we can't get away from water, it's everywhere where we live, so you just never know."
Andres' parents know firsthand how critical these skills are. They almost lost a nephew to drowning.
Andres' dad: "It was actually at a party, there are 10 or 15 adults around, there are 15 or 20 kids, and then somebody all of a sudden turns around and looks, and he's floating about 6 inches under the water."
Luckily, he was rescued in time. That's why the program stresses supervision as the first line of defense, as well as a sturdy pool fence with an alarm.
Lynn Martinez: "The registration fee is $105 and then fees vary depending on where you take lessons."
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Infant Swimming Resourcewww.infantswim.com
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Minimize risks for drowning
By The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 09/11/2007 10:59:42 AM MDT
You may have packed away the beach towels and bathing suits, but where's the pool or hot tub? Still out in the yard. Harvey Barnett, founder of Infant Swimming Resource, says parents need to make their kids' water safety a priority, even during colder seasons. He has a few tips to help keep children safe around water in the months ahead. These tips apply to all water areas including pools, hot tubs, retention ponds, ditches and flooded areas.
Supervise! This is the most important defense. Never turn your back on your child around water. It takes just minutes for him or her to be in serious trouble.
Covers aren't enough. Well-meaning parents may think a cover on the hot tub or pool is enough. But the lid on the drink needs to be secured - year-round - with pool alarms and alarms on doorways that access outdoor water areas, fencing with a self-
latching gate, and door and window locks that are out of a child's reach.
Check again. Double check to make sure locks and pool security devices work. Safety gates are deterrents but not a sole defense. Did you know the average 3-year- old can climb a pool fence in 34 seconds?
Educate others. Nannies, grandparents, neighbors and care givers should know year-
round water-safety tips and have appropriately installed security devices where they are needed.
Put the toys away.
Toys are tempting; never leave them outside around water areas.
Keep a phone by the pool. To be used for emergencies only.
Teach self-rescue skills. Your baby needs self-rescue skills should she fall - or jump - unnoticed into a body of water. Infant Swimming Resource instructors can teach developmentally appropriate and proven water self-rescue skills to babies and toddlers as part of a comprehensive water-safety plan.
Infant Safety Rescue has trained more than 160,000 children, delivered more than 6 million lessons and has more than 784 documented cases of a child's self-rescue using ISR techniques. For information, visit infantswim.com.
Article Last Updated: 09/11/2007 10:59:42 AM MDT
You may have packed away the beach towels and bathing suits, but where's the pool or hot tub? Still out in the yard. Harvey Barnett, founder of Infant Swimming Resource, says parents need to make their kids' water safety a priority, even during colder seasons. He has a few tips to help keep children safe around water in the months ahead. These tips apply to all water areas including pools, hot tubs, retention ponds, ditches and flooded areas.
Supervise! This is the most important defense. Never turn your back on your child around water. It takes just minutes for him or her to be in serious trouble.
Covers aren't enough. Well-meaning parents may think a cover on the hot tub or pool is enough. But the lid on the drink needs to be secured - year-round - with pool alarms and alarms on doorways that access outdoor water areas, fencing with a self-
latching gate, and door and window locks that are out of a child's reach.
Check again. Double check to make sure locks and pool security devices work. Safety gates are deterrents but not a sole defense. Did you know the average 3-year- old can climb a pool fence in 34 seconds?
Educate others. Nannies, grandparents, neighbors and care givers should know year-
round water-safety tips and have appropriately installed security devices where they are needed.
Put the toys away.
Toys are tempting; never leave them outside around water areas.
Keep a phone by the pool. To be used for emergencies only.
Teach self-rescue skills. Your baby needs self-rescue skills should she fall - or jump - unnoticed into a body of water. Infant Swimming Resource instructors can teach developmentally appropriate and proven water self-rescue skills to babies and toddlers as part of a comprehensive water-safety plan.
Infant Safety Rescue has trained more than 160,000 children, delivered more than 6 million lessons and has more than 784 documented cases of a child's self-rescue using ISR techniques. For information, visit infantswim.com.
Swim classes focus on infants
BY GAYLA SCHAEFER FOR FLORIDA TODAY
Each year hundreds of children are hurt or killed in home swimming pools and other residential bodies of water.
For Kelly Haskins of Merritt Island, the problem hit close to home last year while she was sitting by the pool talking on the phone while her 11-year-old daughter played with her 3-year-old son, Hunter.
Her daughter yelled for her and, Haskins said, “I vaguely remember hitting the off button on the phone and throwing it down. I ran to the edge of the pool, grabbed him and pulled him up onto the patio. Hunter’s body was limp, cold and turning blue already. His eyes were rolling to the back of his head and he was definitely not breathing.”
Thankfully, Haskins’ husband knew CPR and got him breathing again, and the boy wasn’t permanently hurt.“
One thing I learned through this experience is to never take your eyes off your kids while they’re in the pool,” said Haskins. “The phone conversation took my attention away and all it took was a minute to nearly lose my son.”
Orlando Dominguez, chief of emergency services for Brevard County, said that his office strongly recommends parents to have a cordless phone by the pool to avoid walking away to answer a ring. And, if adults must leave poolside for any reason, take the children out of the water rather than leaving them unattended.“
It is very hard to say how many (drowning calls) total in Brevard each year because of how we classify the 911 calls,” said Dominguez. “A ballpark figure would be anywhere from 10 to 15 a year, but for us, any is one too many.”
Dominguez also recommends using approved flotation devices, removing toys from pools after use to avoid piquing little ones’ interest, having good safety gates and locks around pools and other residential bodies of water, and perhaps most importantly, teaching children to swim at an early age.
“I was very saddened recently to see yet another story in the newspaper of a child drowning,” said Ginger Blackman, a certified Infant Swimming Resource instructor on Merritt Island who teaches children from 6 months to 6 years old swimming survival lessons.
“This is a preventable tragedy .”
Infant Swimming Resource has more than 422 instructors nationwide, including several in Brevard County. According to Blackmon, more than 144,634 students have been trained and there have been more than 1,700 witnessed survivals as a result of the training and reports of more than 783 un-witnessed survivals.
“Florida ranks only second to Arizona in the number of childhood drownings,” said Jeff Girten, membership and marketing director for the Central Florida YMCA Cocoa Family Center at Brevard Community College.
Drowning ranks as the No. 1 cause of accidental death for children under the age of four in Florida, he said.
“The YMCA has a goal to do all we can to prevent drownings,” said Girten. “Being in Florida with so much water it is important to be safe.”
The organization partnered with the Dr. Phillips Foundation and Infant Swim Research to offer Safe Start drowning prevention at local YMCAs, including the one in Cocoa — which offers the classes in its Olympic-size pool to children from six-months to three-years-old.
Infant Swim Resources also offers classes instructors’ homes across Brevard. Haskins enrolled her son in an ISR program in Cocoa Beach taught by Allison Mollica two months after his accident.
“She was kind, gentle but strong, and taught him survival techniques in a matter of just 10 minutes a day throughout about three weeks,” said Haskins.
“At the end of the program, he was swimming underwater, and able to do a ‘starfish’ technique of floating on his back, then flip over and get to the side of the pool. At the final class, he had to swim fully clothed, just as he would if he were to accidentally fall into the pool.”
Blackman said that babies ages six to 12 months learn breath control, correct floating posture and the skills to attain a back float and remain floating for varied periods of time.
“Children who are at least 12 months old and walking will learn correct swimming posture, movement through the water, the rollback-to-float as well as rotating to a face down position to continue to swim. This ‘swim-float-swim’ sequence can be repeated until safety is reached.”
Apart from teaching children to swim, Dominguez also recommends that parents learn CPR techniques for infants and children.
“CPR for children is critical before paramedics arrive and there are many institutions that offer classes,” he said. “You can call most any fire department for information on classes or look in the phone book for organizations like the Red Cross and American Heart Association which offer it.”
Haskins, got a CPR crash course at the hospital where her son was taken after his accident.
“Before we left the hospital, a nurse took a few moments to teach me infant CPR on a ‘dummy child’ and that’s when I lost it,” said Haskins. “The whole experience came flooding back to me, and I realized just how closely I came to losing him, and how fortunate I was that my daughter alerted me when she did. I’m not sure how long he had been under water, or how long he had lost consciousness. All I knew was that he had nearly drowned on my watch, and I was only about 10 feet away. If this happened to me, this could happen to anyone.”
Each year hundreds of children are hurt or killed in home swimming pools and other residential bodies of water.
For Kelly Haskins of Merritt Island, the problem hit close to home last year while she was sitting by the pool talking on the phone while her 11-year-old daughter played with her 3-year-old son, Hunter.
Her daughter yelled for her and, Haskins said, “I vaguely remember hitting the off button on the phone and throwing it down. I ran to the edge of the pool, grabbed him and pulled him up onto the patio. Hunter’s body was limp, cold and turning blue already. His eyes were rolling to the back of his head and he was definitely not breathing.”
Thankfully, Haskins’ husband knew CPR and got him breathing again, and the boy wasn’t permanently hurt.“
One thing I learned through this experience is to never take your eyes off your kids while they’re in the pool,” said Haskins. “The phone conversation took my attention away and all it took was a minute to nearly lose my son.”
Orlando Dominguez, chief of emergency services for Brevard County, said that his office strongly recommends parents to have a cordless phone by the pool to avoid walking away to answer a ring. And, if adults must leave poolside for any reason, take the children out of the water rather than leaving them unattended.“
It is very hard to say how many (drowning calls) total in Brevard each year because of how we classify the 911 calls,” said Dominguez. “A ballpark figure would be anywhere from 10 to 15 a year, but for us, any is one too many.”
Dominguez also recommends using approved flotation devices, removing toys from pools after use to avoid piquing little ones’ interest, having good safety gates and locks around pools and other residential bodies of water, and perhaps most importantly, teaching children to swim at an early age.
“I was very saddened recently to see yet another story in the newspaper of a child drowning,” said Ginger Blackman, a certified Infant Swimming Resource instructor on Merritt Island who teaches children from 6 months to 6 years old swimming survival lessons.
“This is a preventable tragedy .”
Infant Swimming Resource has more than 422 instructors nationwide, including several in Brevard County. According to Blackmon, more than 144,634 students have been trained and there have been more than 1,700 witnessed survivals as a result of the training and reports of more than 783 un-witnessed survivals.
“Florida ranks only second to Arizona in the number of childhood drownings,” said Jeff Girten, membership and marketing director for the Central Florida YMCA Cocoa Family Center at Brevard Community College.
Drowning ranks as the No. 1 cause of accidental death for children under the age of four in Florida, he said.
“The YMCA has a goal to do all we can to prevent drownings,” said Girten. “Being in Florida with so much water it is important to be safe.”
The organization partnered with the Dr. Phillips Foundation and Infant Swim Research to offer Safe Start drowning prevention at local YMCAs, including the one in Cocoa — which offers the classes in its Olympic-size pool to children from six-months to three-years-old.
Infant Swim Resources also offers classes instructors’ homes across Brevard. Haskins enrolled her son in an ISR program in Cocoa Beach taught by Allison Mollica two months after his accident.
“She was kind, gentle but strong, and taught him survival techniques in a matter of just 10 minutes a day throughout about three weeks,” said Haskins.
“At the end of the program, he was swimming underwater, and able to do a ‘starfish’ technique of floating on his back, then flip over and get to the side of the pool. At the final class, he had to swim fully clothed, just as he would if he were to accidentally fall into the pool.”
Blackman said that babies ages six to 12 months learn breath control, correct floating posture and the skills to attain a back float and remain floating for varied periods of time.
“Children who are at least 12 months old and walking will learn correct swimming posture, movement through the water, the rollback-to-float as well as rotating to a face down position to continue to swim. This ‘swim-float-swim’ sequence can be repeated until safety is reached.”
Apart from teaching children to swim, Dominguez also recommends that parents learn CPR techniques for infants and children.
“CPR for children is critical before paramedics arrive and there are many institutions that offer classes,” he said. “You can call most any fire department for information on classes or look in the phone book for organizations like the Red Cross and American Heart Association which offer it.”
Haskins, got a CPR crash course at the hospital where her son was taken after his accident.
“Before we left the hospital, a nurse took a few moments to teach me infant CPR on a ‘dummy child’ and that’s when I lost it,” said Haskins. “The whole experience came flooding back to me, and I realized just how closely I came to losing him, and how fortunate I was that my daughter alerted me when she did. I’m not sure how long he had been under water, or how long he had lost consciousness. All I knew was that he had nearly drowned on my watch, and I was only about 10 feet away. If this happened to me, this could happen to anyone.”
Infants and Toddlers at Risk of Drowning in Bathtubs, Spas and Buckets - 80 percent of deaths involve children younger than two
WASHINGTON, D.C. - When pool season ends, many parents believe the risk of drowning also ends, but data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) released today indicates 311 reported non-pool drownings from 2002 through 2004 of children younger than five years of age. More than 80 percent of these deaths involved children younger than two years old. The pattern is much different than that observed in pool-related incidents where children younger than two accounted for 38 percent of deaths (involving children younger than five).
Bathtubs were involved in most (71 percent) of the non-pool drowning deaths from 2002-2004. Many of these incidents involved caregivers leaving the room to answer the phone/door or to retrieve an item. In some incidents, an older sibling was left to watch a younger sibling.
"Infants and toddlers need particularly close supervision," said CPSC Acting Chairman Nancy Nord. "Drowning can occur within seconds in only inches of water, so parents need think of, not just the pool, but any water anywhere as dangerous."
CPSC recommends parents and caregivers follow these safety tips when children are around bathtubs, spas, buckets, or decorative ponds or fountains:
Bathtubs were involved in most (71 percent) of the non-pool drowning deaths from 2002-2004. Many of these incidents involved caregivers leaving the room to answer the phone/door or to retrieve an item. In some incidents, an older sibling was left to watch a younger sibling.
"Infants and toddlers need particularly close supervision," said CPSC Acting Chairman Nancy Nord. "Drowning can occur within seconds in only inches of water, so parents need think of, not just the pool, but any water anywhere as dangerous."
CPSC recommends parents and caregivers follow these safety tips when children are around bathtubs, spas, buckets, or decorative ponds or fountains:
- Never leave young children alone near any water. Young children can drown in even small amounts of water.
- Always keep a young child within arm's reach in a bathtub. Never leave to answer the phone, answer the door, get a towel or for any other reason. If you must leave, take the child with you.
- Don't leave a baby or toddler in a bathtub under the care of another young child.
- Never leave a bucket containing even a small amount of liquid unattended. Toddlers can fall headfirst into buckets and drown. After using a bucket, always empty and store it where young children cannot reach it. Buckets left outside can collect rainwater and are a hazard.
- Prevent children from gaining access to spas or hot tubs when not in use; always secure with safety covers and barriers.
- Learn CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). It can be a lifesaver when seconds count.
The Story of Miles
The Story of Miles
Many of you who have seen the video segment on YOU-TUBE or various blogs on the internet, have asked about the 11 month baby who, along with his father and the family dog, are in the videoclip. The baby had 3 weeks of ISR lessons prior to having his simulated self rescue while fully clothed skills videotaped. It is a re-enacted drowning scenario that happened to a family whose baby was not skilled and therefore drowned. In the scene we taped, both his mother and father were present at the taping along with several other adults and his ISR Instructor. As part of ISR lessons, parents are involved in the water once their baby is skilled, for at-home practice only and you see that they have practiced at home the end of the clip, when his father picks him up.
The video was scripted and shot to be part of the Pediatric Grand Rounds presentations Dr. Barnett uses at major children's hospitals throughout the United States to educate the health care professionals as part of their continuing medical education. In its unedited form, it can be viewed in the Pediatric Grand Rounds presentation from the University of Arizona Tucson Medical Center's webcast of that event. Please realize that this is a presentation for medical doctors, nurses and others who deal with the aftermath of medical emergencies such as drowning and near-drowning, so there are graphic portions that are not suitable viewing for anyone of a sensitive nature. Since the number one question that physicians attending Grand Rounds ask is, "how long can a skilled baby maintain himself independently in the water?", we answered the question in the video with a 5 minute float. In the segment they see, they can view all 5 minutes of the sustained back float. 5 minutes is of special significance for the physicians since they know that the chances of fully recovering a child who has been without air for that long is very remote.
Today as a 4 year old, this little boy is a tremendous swimmer. He swims most everyday in the backyard pool or at an aquatic center but he really prefers the Ocean. To say that he loves the water is an understatement. He is an accomplished snorkeler and can safely dive down 15 feet to see the fish he is learning to identify. His obvious comfort level in the water is the result of his early ISR lessons, he will never remember a time when he was not very skilled in the water. He already shows great respect for the water and his skills since he asks an adult for permission to go into the water. BECAUSE he is so very skilled in the water, he is closely supervised.
http://www.infantswim.com/Miles.html
Many of you who have seen the video segment on YOU-TUBE or various blogs on the internet, have asked about the 11 month baby who, along with his father and the family dog, are in the videoclip. The baby had 3 weeks of ISR lessons prior to having his simulated self rescue while fully clothed skills videotaped. It is a re-enacted drowning scenario that happened to a family whose baby was not skilled and therefore drowned. In the scene we taped, both his mother and father were present at the taping along with several other adults and his ISR Instructor. As part of ISR lessons, parents are involved in the water once their baby is skilled, for at-home practice only and you see that they have practiced at home the end of the clip, when his father picks him up.
The video was scripted and shot to be part of the Pediatric Grand Rounds presentations Dr. Barnett uses at major children's hospitals throughout the United States to educate the health care professionals as part of their continuing medical education. In its unedited form, it can be viewed in the Pediatric Grand Rounds presentation from the University of Arizona Tucson Medical Center's webcast of that event. Please realize that this is a presentation for medical doctors, nurses and others who deal with the aftermath of medical emergencies such as drowning and near-drowning, so there are graphic portions that are not suitable viewing for anyone of a sensitive nature. Since the number one question that physicians attending Grand Rounds ask is, "how long can a skilled baby maintain himself independently in the water?", we answered the question in the video with a 5 minute float. In the segment they see, they can view all 5 minutes of the sustained back float. 5 minutes is of special significance for the physicians since they know that the chances of fully recovering a child who has been without air for that long is very remote.
Today as a 4 year old, this little boy is a tremendous swimmer. He swims most everyday in the backyard pool or at an aquatic center but he really prefers the Ocean. To say that he loves the water is an understatement. He is an accomplished snorkeler and can safely dive down 15 feet to see the fish he is learning to identify. His obvious comfort level in the water is the result of his early ISR lessons, he will never remember a time when he was not very skilled in the water. He already shows great respect for the water and his skills since he asks an adult for permission to go into the water. BECAUSE he is so very skilled in the water, he is closely supervised.
http://www.infantswim.com/Miles.html
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