St. Louis, MO 
British Swim School St. Louis is grateful for pediatricians like Dr. Steen James. In a post on the website of the American Academy of Pediatrics, she talks about why she urges all her families to get swim lessons, to start them early and to make them a priority. She is motivated by an incident early in her practice and an experience of her own.
“The 3-year-old boy had been upstairs at home with his mother. She stepped into the washroom, and when she came out a couple minutes later, she noticed her son was gone.
Panicked, she instinctively ran to the family swimming pool, where she found the gate unlatched and her son floating face down in the water. Although she immediately started CPR as the ambulance raced to her home, the boy suffered extensive brain damage. He remained in a vegetative state until he passed away at age 14.”
She goes on to describe an incident with her own child:
“In my early years of caring for this patient, I’d often reflected on a similar incident involving my own son…My husband and I had moved with our toddler son into a home with a pool, and we had in-depth conversations about safety around water, including the need for constant supervision.”
“One afternoon, our son was in the backyard playing as my husband watched from a few feet away. Even with my husband right there, our son fell into the deep end of the pool and went under.”
“‘It was so quick,’ said my husband, who yanked our boy out by his ankles. ‘It happened right in front of my eyes.’”
“Thankfully, our son was OK. But as I cared for the boy who never recovered, I would remember how easily that could have been my son.”
“When he fell into the pool, we had just signed our son up for gymnastics lessons. We immediately started looking for swim lessons, instead. Gymnastics could wait.””
She vowed to make it a priority to provide anticipatory guidance on water safety.
She writes: “Even with the most well intentioned and attentive parents, children can drown in an instant. Young children, especially, are fascinated by water and drawn to its shiny wet ripples. That’s why the recently released AAP policy statement, “Prevention of Drowning,” emphasizes the need for multiple layers of protection to keep them safe. This includes close and constant supervision, yes, but also other precautions such as pool fences with child-proof, locking gates, and swim lessons as soon as a child is developmentally ready…I realized I could help by referring families to community resources, including accessible swim lessons, and talking about swim lessons early–even before children can walk and start getting involved in other activities.
I started asking families about activities they plan to get involved with. Some parents, especially dads, tell me how they can’t wait to enroll their son or daughter in football, basketball, soccer or gymnastics.
“‘Those are great sports,’ I say. ‘But, look, the first sport they should learn is how to swim. Let’s get this done first, because when they become very involved in this other sport, it is going to be more of a challenge to find time.’
The goal is not to produce Olympic swimmers, I tell parents, but just make sure the child is water safe and they’ve been taught basic swimming and self-rescue techniques from a qualified instructor.”
“We now incorporate [a] swim survey as a routine annual screening tool in my practice. This lets us see how we are doing with our families to increase water competency.”
“My families have a lot of priorities competing for their time, but more and more they are finding a way to make swim lessons a priority. As pediatricians, also with many competing priorities, so must we.”
We at British Swim School are so grateful to pediatricians like
Dr. James who recognize the seriousness of the risks of drowning (the leading cause of accidental death for children 1 – 4 and second for 5 – 9) and who make water safety a priority.
You can help by asking your pediatrician to talk about water safety.
British Swim School St. Louis offers premium water survival and swimming lessons for infants, toddlers, children and adults, starting at just 3 months old. We proudly serve the St. Louis communities of Afton, Ballwin, Brentwood, Chesterfield, Clayton, Concord, Crestwood, Creve Coeur, Dardenne Prairie, Eureka, Fenton, High Ridge, Howell Island, Kirkwood, Ladue, Lake St. Louis, Manchester, Maplewood, Maryland Heights, New Town, Olivette, Overland, O’Fallon, Richmond Heights, St. Charles, Orchard Farm, St. Paul, St. Peters, Sunset Hills, Town and Country, Valley Park, Webster Groves, Weldon Springs, and Wildwood. Call 314-312-1878 to enroll or find a class online.
