Water Safety Essentials: Protecting Your Child From Dry Drowning

[Music] okay P your kids are going to turn out just fine this episode of the your kids will be fine podcast is brought to you by true height true height is what your child needs to help them reach their full growth and height potential it is not a magic pill that will make your child grow beyond their genetic potential but what it does do is that true height addresses the areas that can limit growth potential especially the areas of nutrition sleep and stress I use and recommend trueu height products in my own practice because the ingredients are clean they are well researched they're backed by clinical trials kids in my practice love it it tastes great even the picky eaters like it for more information you can go to the podcast website yourkids willbe find.com or go to True height vitamins that's t r HEI G HT trueu height vitamins.com this is the your kids will be fine podcast I am Dr Michael malavsky board certified pediatrician and parent of seven on your kids will be fine we talk about all of the overload of information that parents are often having to sore through today that generates usually an uh an unnecessary amount of anxiety and we're here to help you focus on what's important and what really you need to worry about when it comes to your kids health so let's uh get into it today we're talking about water safety and dry drowning now um for the first 15 years of my medical career I practiced as a pediatric emergency pediatrician and a pediatric hospitalist I unfortunately saw many many many horrible instances of pediatric drowning almost all the kids that I saw were between 1 and four years old and in fact when you look at the statistics around water safety drowning Still Remains the leading cause of death by injury for children one to four about a thousand kids a year um and adding to to everyone's anxiety about water safety was this tidal wave of news stories around dry drowning so the term dry drowning what dry drowning is supposed to refer to is some acute lung injury that is caused by aspiration of of breathing w a significant of water amount of water into the lungs that could develop over minutes to hours after exposure that leads to resp failure the thing to remember about this is that this situation in a child who has some kind of event at the pool usually what the calls I get are uh a child is being supervised and slips underwater and is quickly pulled up and has a sputtering coughing event a child who looks well at the scene it there this is an exceedingly rare event in a child who looks well a submersion injury in the absence of loss of conscious ious the scene the risk of that is exceedingly low compared to the risk of death from actual real time drowning so your parents focus should not necessarily be on dry drowning but should be on the Intensive um supervision of children around water the caveat to this is small children so let's say kids under three and under usually may not be able to communicate what they're experiencing at after a submersion injury so after any kind of water scare it makes sense for parents to watch your child what are you watching for you're watching for any change in their respiratory pattern either fast or labored breathing when I say labored breathing I mean that it looks like they're stomach and it sucks in after each breath and creates kind of a rocking motion uh that occurs when they um breathing that is increasingly Rapid or there changes in their uh mental state they don't seem to be behaving or acting normally in any of those appearance in usually it could be associated with cough too but in any of those cases parents should seek medical attention these are for kids who are small and generally not verbal enough but if your child is well appearing and there was no loss of consciousness at the scene simply watching them uh for an hour a little bit more than that after at the pool or where you are is plenty of time to know if there's going to be a problem almost every doctor I talk to who is an i pediatric ICU Specialist or a pediatric emergency specialist emphasizes to me that delayed onset of serious respiratory problems is rare and so once again the focus should be on prevention of water accidents we had a a a nearly scary water accident happened to one of our own kids we child was playing next to a twot pond that was in our apartment complex we turned our heads to have a conversation we heard nothing when we realized that we couldn't see our kid we stood up and he was floating in ice cold water and not moving we rushed to get him out thank God he was fine we took him to seek medical attention because he seemed a little shocked from the cold but the point is in every drowning situation that I've been involved in as a medical professional in the the story is almost always the same that people turn their head just for a minute and that's all it took for something devastating to happen and contrary to what most people think there's no sound it's not something that you can hear there's not going to be any call for help most of the time it's completely silent which makes it even scarier in terms of who is at risk the most at risk for drowning is really for Kids 1 to four why toddlers are mobile they're curious they love exploring their environment and they're typically unable to swim well so uh but remember older kids and teenagers all that risk for drowning especially if not in kids especially for teenagers if alcohol is involved because it impairs your physical skills where can drowning happen as we learned it can happen in a very shallow fountain or Pond a lot of the worst cases I've seen are at community pools mostly because it's crowded and people lose track of their kid lifeguards cannot be relied on although they're a valuable resource but they cannot be relied on preventing your child from having something devastating happened at the pool so parents have to be the primary first line of defense but don't discount the fact that bathtubs toilets backyard play pools all can potentially have a drowning event in a kid who's young and isn't competent in the water so intense supervision water supervision means that it is a Hands-On it is a Hands-On uh type of situation when you are supervising young kids in the water you have to be in or next to the water and within Arms Reach and Visually engaged with the kid there's no other substitute for that along with layers of protection especially if you have your own backyard pool fences locked Gates but there has to be a specific adult who is in physical contact with the child in the water there is a very very big role for early swimming lessons teaching a child to flip over and Float on their back in the water can be life-saving um at least in our community there is no less than half a dozen places that specialize in teaching young kids to be competent and safe in the water enough to prevent a serious drowning event so it's critical to teach small children water skills wherever that's available is when when you're at a crowded pool or a crowded water space there has to be someone designated to be watching the kids it can't be just a group experience if everybody's doing it nobody's doing it and and once again layers of protection in the end provide the best prevention against a potentially devastating water event so is Drive drowning a thing yes theoretically it is a thing practically speaking in a well- appearing child who had a brief water event and is acting fine the risk or chance of that being anything to do with dry drowning or a concern is exceedingly small the energy that parents should put in to water safety has more to do with prevention and um children 1 to4 by far the most vulnerable and require the most supervision so uh I hope this helps I hope this alleviates some summertime anxiety I know that uh we get dozens of calls a week just in my office around this question because it's become such a big issue especially online that generates I believe probably more anxiety than it needs to so I hope everyone has a healthy and safe summer and a happy kickoff to the swimming pool season here this Memorial Day it's beautiful weather here in uh Denver Colorado once again you can find your kids will be find podcast on all podcast platforms Apple Spotify or anywhere you get your podcasts don't forget get to go to yourkids willbe find.com where all the episodes can be download you can leave us comments and uh show suggestions as well uh the YouTube channel has the video podcast up and that's a great place to comment and also leave us ideas for future shows everyone have a healthy and safe summer at the water this whole summer and Memorial Day and we're looking forward to seeing you next week