PAMELA LEBLANC: FIT CITY

Lessons teach babies to roll and float in water

Infants can save themselves with Infant Swimming Resource classes

By Pamela LeBLanc
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, March 16, 2009

She's only 9 months old, but when Mina Stephens is plopped face-down in a deep swimming pool, she rolls easily onto her back and gulps for air.

The pint-sized baby in a pink swim diaper learned the technique, called Infant Swimming Resource, in about four weeks. She looks like a tiny otter now, bobbing gently on the surface. Her mother, Melissa Stephens, hopes the new skill will keep her from drowning if she falls into water and no one can immediately pull her out.

"We definitely enjoy being around water, and when accidents occur, they happen quickly, even with parents around," says Stephens, 31. "We wanted to make sure Mina was safe."

Summer swimming season is fast approaching, and along with it an increased risk of drowning. Last June, a 4-year-old boy died after he was pulled unconscious from the outdoor pool at Life Time Fitness on South MoPac Boulevard. Another 4-year-old drowned in the swimming pool of an apartment complex just north of Austin in July.

Drowning is the second leading cause of injury death (after motor vehicle crashes) among children ages 1 to 14, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An average of 10 people drown each day in the United States.

One way to help prevent drowning is to take swimming lessons. But the American Academy of Pediatrics doesn't recommend them as the primary means of drowning prevention for children younger than 4. A responsible, watchful observer and barriers such as child-proof fences are also needed even when kids have taken lessons.

The Austin Parks and Recreation Department offers Infant and Preschool Aquatic Program classes for children ages 6 months to 5 years. The classes are geared to making children comfortable in the water but aren't designed to teach them to swim or survive in water on their own.

But classes like the ones Mina took, while pricey, can provide crucial extra seconds when an emergency does occur.

Harvey Barnett began developing the self-rescue technique in 1966, after an infant drowned in a drainage canal in his Florida neighborhood. A lifeguard at the time, Barnett began teaching his neighbors how to swim. He took particular note of nonverbal babies and eventually came up with a teaching method that involved rolling and floating. Since then, some 175,000 children have taken the class — and not one has drowned, according to the class organization.

The one-on-one lessons are designed for children from 6 months to 6 years old. The children take one 10-minute lesson a day, five days a week for four to six weeks.

Infants learn to hold their breath under water, roll onto their backs and float without help. Older toddlers learn to hold their breath under water, swim with their head down, roll onto their back to float and rest, then roll back over to swim until they reach the edge of the pool and can crawl out or be rescued by an adult.

Babies, Bates says, are sensory motor learners. She is one of four instructors certified to teach the classes in Austin. She's taught about 120 kids so far.

"It's muscle memory. They don't forget it," she says.

She first teaches the babies to hold their heads and bodies high in the water. Once they are secure in floating, she shows them how to roll onto their backs if they are face down in the water.

Aditya Swaminathan, 10 months, cries when his mom hands him to Bates, who is standing in the waist-deep, 86-degree water of a pool normally used to teach adults how to scuba dive. Crying isn't discouraged, though.

"If he does fall in the water, I want him to let me know," says Aditya's mom, Gayathri Radhakrishnan, 31. Radhakrishnan doesn't know how to swim and put her son in the classes so he wouldn't grow up afraid of the water. She also wanted to keep him safe.

"If by some odd chance he falls in, I can go get someone," she says.

Rick and Dursty Engel signed up their 2-year-old son Jack because they have a swimming pool at home. "The survival part of this thing made sense," Rick Engel says.

Jack can do more than just pop his head up and roll onto his back — he can spin onto his belly and flap his arms to move a foot or two forward, then roll back onto his back to catch his breath.

"It's really amazing to watch the progression in six weeks," Bates says. "It's so worth it to know if he fell in he'd survive."

Bates says she's heard from parents whose child fell into the water while the parents were standing nearby.

"The kid came up and floated," Bates says. "This can save lives."

pleblanc@statesman.com; 445-3994