Parenting: Babies
Can Swimming Early Mean Reduced Lung Function Later in Life?
Are swimming pools safe for your baby? Infant swimming lessons are gaining in popularity as worried parents try to prevent drowning accidents. Most preschools and daycare centers offer swim lessons, and national swimming programs geared toward toddlers abound.
Some experts believe that swimming lessons for infants and toddlers may help prevent drowning accidents. The American Academy of Pediatrics disagrees. In a 2003 policy statement, the AAP writes, "Children are generally not developmentally ready for formal swimming lessons until after their fourth birthday ... Ultimately, the decision of when to start a child in swimming lessons must be individualized. Parents should be reminded that swimming lessons will not provide 'drown proofing' for children of any age."
Now, a study out of Belgium suggests that there may be more reasons to keep your baby out of the pool. The study, "Infant Swimming Practice, Pulmonary Epithelium Integrity, and Risk of Allergic and Respiratory Diseases Later in Childhood," examined the role indoor chlorinated pools play in the development of asthma and reduced lung function. It found that trichloramine, a chlorine byproduct, is one of the most concentrated air pollutants to which children of developed countries are regularly exposed.
The authors of the study say that this pollutant, along with other aerosolized chlorine-based oxidants, can be associated with airway changes that predispose children to asthma and recurrent bronchitis later in childhood.
Is There a Threat?Other experts are more skeptical of the threat. Dr. Timothy Doran, a pediatrician from Greater Baltimore Medical Center, is one of those experts. He says that not only was the study small (a small group of 43 children with asthma and who had taken indoor swimming were compared to a group who did not take swim lessons), the group of children who swam as infants also had parents who smoked cigarettes at a higher rate than the control group.
"The authors postulated that the exposure to irritant gases and aerosols in indoor swimming pools can be deleterious to infant lungs," Dr. Doran says. "The study will need to be done with a much larger population before any definitive conclusion can be drawn, however."
Roy Fielding, a member of the American Red Cross Advisory Council on First Aid, Aquatics, Safety and Preparedness and also the Exercise Science program director for the Department of Kinesiology at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, says that from what he can discern from the study, it seems to have only been conducted at one pool, but that is not to say that an air quality threat does not exist – at some pools.
"I do believe that some indoor pools have issues with air quality and may be affecting the health of some individuals," Fielding says. "The 'chlorine smell' associated with indoor pools is caused by chloramines. Chloramines are the result of chlorine reacting with ammonia compounds such as urine and sweat and not because of too high a chlorine level."
Indoor Pool Air QualityFielding says the most important issues parents must be aware of concerning the subject of indoor pool air quality are these:
- Is there proper air circulation that flushes air from the surface of the water?
- Is the return air fresh air and not re-circulated air?
- Is there proper water chemistry and balance?
"I do think indoor air quality can have an effect on the health of infants, children and adults just as we have seen the effect of outdoor air quality on human health," Fielding says.
He believes, however, that the most pressing threat to teaching infants to swim is that parents may let their guard down because they feel the infant has had lessons in learning to swim. Also, the ingestion of pool water may have containments in it and can cause a recreational water illness.
Fielding feels building swimming readiness in infants and small children is key. "The American Red Cross Parent and Child Aquatics Program is designed for children 6 months to 5 years of age and builds swimming readiness by emphasizing fun in the water," Fielding says. "Parents and children participate in several guided practice sessions that help children learn elementary skills, including water entry, bubble blowing, front kicking, back floating, underwater exploration and more. Once children can perform basic skills without parental assistance, they may begin Learn to Swim programs."
Dr. Harvey Barnett, the founder and director of Infant Swimming Resource, a nationally recognized program dedicated to prevent infant drowning, was a lifeguard at a very early age and was traumatized when his next door neighbor's infant drowned. He dedicated his life and all the knowledge he gained as a psychologist to working out techniques to teach nonverbal infants to swim. He says that far more children drown than die from respiratory complications from asthma that may or may not present years down the road and be arbitrarily attributed to early exposure to indoor swimming pools while disregarding thousands of intervening variables.
"The study cited here is inherently flawed and given the data that was collected and the method of collection as well as the lack of control of a myriad of other variables the authors have grossly overstated their conclusions," Dr. Barnett says.
Dr. Barnett says the biggest danger associated with infants learning to swim is the fact that infant swimming is an unregulated industry. States do not require minimum standards for individuals claiming to offer swimming lessons to infants and young children.
So while experts debate on whether air quality is harmful and whether swim lessons are beneficial in reducing drowning, worried parents just want to keep their child safe. Whether or not that means swimming lessons is up to the individual parent.
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