Christopher Ward is only 3 years old, but already he is a swimmer, making his way the entire length of the pool at the Ellicott City Y and then, after a little break, back again.
His mother, Colley, signed him up for his first lesson when he was 6 months old. As he got older, she knew she had to keep enrolling him in classes. "My child's a daredevil. When he was 2, he'd just jump in, no matter how many times I said, 'Don't do that,' " she said.
He would have to learn how to swim or he could hurt himself or worse. "Now I feel more confident with him in the water," she said. "I know he has basic skills at this point."
A National Institutes of Health study published in last month's Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found that providing very young children - like Christopher - with swimming lessons appears to significantly reduce their risk of drowning.
The study is the first of its kind, and researchers hope the findings will ease concerns of pediatricians. Many have long felt that giving swimming lessons to children ages 1 to 4 might actually increase their drowning risk by making parents less vigilant when children are near the water and by decreasing children's natural - and healthy - fear of the water.
Still, concluded the authors: "Parents and caregivers who choose to enroll their children in swimming lessons should be cautioned that this alone will not prevent drowning and that even the most proficient swimmers can drown."
Parents often ask Dr. Robert Ancona, chief of pediatrics at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, whether their infants and toddlers should take swimming lessons. "Overall, we kind of advise against it," he said.
He worries that everyone involved - parents, caregivers, the children themselves - may develop a false sense of security from formal lessons. Parents may pay less attention to their little ones around the water. Children might wander off alone to a pool, believing they know how to swim. The results can be deadly.
Ancona says that while swimming lessons might be fun, the skills taught are "not to be relied on" as a way to prevent drowning, especially in children younger than 4.
"You're getting them used to the water, they may learn to float, but they're not going to learn the Australian crawl," he said. "That stuff is all OK, but the parent needs to understand they're not really swimming lessons. They're entertainment."
