TODDLER SWIM PROGRAM STRESSES SAFETY

Louie and Jeannie Mishu both love the water and want to share that with their 9 1/2-month-old son, Nicholas. And in a parent-infant swim class at Cape Girardeau's Central Municipal Swimming Pool Nicholas certainly seemed to enjoy himself as he splashed in the water as his mother held him.

The class is meant to make babies like Nicholas more familiar with the pool and teach safety tips to parents. The class will not, underline not, teach babies to swim, said instructor Sandy Wendel.

"You can't teach infants to swim," Wendel said. "Classes like this are just to get babies started adjusting to the water."

And in that way the classes taught by the City of Cape Girardeau's Parks and Recreation Department fall under those approved by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Last week the academy warned that swimming lessons for children younger than 4 may give the children and parents a false sense of security around the water. The academy emphasized the warning was not aimed at programs developed by the American Red Cross, which is what is taught at the Cape Girardeau pools, or the YMCA. These lessons are meant to get children accustomed to the water and teach safety tips.

The academy warned parents against aquatic programs that try to develop water skills in children younger than 4 and even tell parents their children can swim, said the authors of the academy's policy statement.

"We're discouraging lessons for children under 4 if the parents' idea is that teaching their baby to swim makes them safer," said Dr. Barb Smith, a pediatrician who helped write the policy statement.

Such training can make the parents less vigilant and the baby more interested in going in the pool alone," Smith said.

Children under 4 are not ready physically or intellectually for lessons in how to swim, the academy said.

The academy issued the policy statement because of a growing interest in aquatics programs for infants and toddlers, Smith said. An estimated 5 million to 10 million children participate in aquatics programs annually in the United States.

Doug Gannon, recreation coordinator for the city's Parks and Recreation Department, said the numbers of children participating in the department's swimming lessons is growing.

He said 1,110 to 1,200 children take swimming lessons through the city program each year. Lessons are offered in the fall, spring and summer.

"There are so many activities around water today, water skiing, canoeing, going to the river or the lake, that parents feel their children need to learn to swim," Gannon said.

Lessons in the city's program teach swimming skills to make children be better swimmers, he said lessons that get infants and toddlers accustomed to the water and teach swimming techniques for older children.

In addition, the lessons emphasize safety, which Gannon said is just as, if not more important, than learning how to do swim strokes.

"People can never underestimate the inherent danger of a water environment," Gannon said.

The academy said drowning is a leading cause of unintentional injury and death in the pediatric age group.

Whenever an infant or toddler is in or around water, an adult should be within arm's length, providing "touch" supervision, the academy said.

Wendel said older children need supervision as well.

"Drowning can occur at any age," she said. "You should never leave kids alone in a pool environment unsupervised."

Gannon said, "In all our programs we stress that swim lessons and life preservers or whatever precautions you take do not substitute for parental supervision."