There is a debate as to whether babies younger than one year should be taken to the swimming pool, writes Fiona Tyrrell
BABY JANA joined an infant swimming class when she was five months old. Now, after just four sessions playing "splish splash", "float on my back", and "baby surfing" she is kicking around the pool with a nonchalant look on her face that says "ya, I'm a pro".
Giving her child a natural introduction to water before she developed a fear of it was the main reason for joining the classes, says her mother, Emer Slancová.
"I am not a swimmer and my oldest child, who is a very good swimmer now, didn't start until she was five and we had to work hard to help her overcome fear of the water even at that age," she says.
Mother and baby have been attending weekly classes at Leisureland pool in Galway, and Jana enjoys them so much that Emer says she now understands the words "swimming" and gets excited when she sees her swimsuit.
"Swimming is therapeutic and is a great aerobic sport. I wanted to give her those opportunities from the start. It is also a lovely way to build trust between parent and child," she says.
When it comes to swimming, it is a case of "the earlier the better", according to Charlotte Parker, director of education and development with Swim Ireland, the governing body of swimming in Ireland.
She encourages parents to bring babies to swimming pools, as soon as it is safe to go into the water which, she says, is from four months on.
The benefits of infant swimming are numerous, according to Parker - exercise for both parent and child, parent-child bonding and socialisation, not to mention water safety skills and the life-long physical, social and psychological payback that swimming offers.
This autumn Swim Ireland will be launching Swim A Song, an infant swimming teaching programme which will be offered to leisure centres around the State and in the North.
Under the initiative, Swim Ireland will offer teacher-training to leisure centres, as well as provide parent education packs for use at home and in the pool.
The programme uses games and nursery rhymes to help children feel safe, comfortable and confident in the water at a very early age, according to Parker.
The Swim A Song programme is the first step in an eight-part aquatic pathway programme currently being developed by Swim Ireland, which aims to encourage life-long participation in swimming. A follow-on Learn To Swim programme aimed at children aged three and upwards is also being developed by Swim Ireland. "Like playgroup but in water," is how Lucy McDonald describes her baby and parent classes at the National Aquatic Centre in Blanchardstown in Dublin.
Kicking, splashing and encouraging a child to get wet are the main features of any baby swimming class, says McDonald, who has been giving baby swimming classes since 2003. She encourages babies to blow bubbles and get parents to wash the babies' faces, dip their ears and sprinkle water on their noses.
When children have advanced, she will do jumping exercises which involve children jumping into their parent's arms, or even into the pool. Songs such as "splash mammy" or "humpty dumpty falls" accompany the exercises.
"Children naturally don't like putting their faces in water because they don't feel in control and will automatically breath water up their nose. One of the aims of the classes is to help children feel confident so that they will automatically breath out rather than in when their face is under water."
Many parents come to the class with the misconception that a child can swim under water, but this natural reflex is lost within a couple weeks of birth, she adds.
Attaining water safety skills is a big motivation for parents looking for baby swimming classes, according to Galway-based teacher Mary Kenny.
"The idea is if a child ever fell into water they would not panic and would know how to make their way up to the surface," she says.
Kenny runs a four-week programme at Leisureland pool in Salthill, which covers floating, playing with toys in the water, submerging and baby body surfing using kick boards.
The aim is to foster water confidence, promote bonding and have fun, she says.
Kenny also runs baby massage courses in Galway and says that while her massage courses are solely attended by mothers and babies, dads are increasingly common at swimming classes.
There are conflicting opinions on when it is appropriate for babies to be brought into a swimming pool. Kenny takes babies as early as six weeks, but prefers to take babies after their first round of vaccinations.
Swim Ireland recommends four months on, while others say after the first birthday is the appropriate time to get into the pool.
Taking a long-term approach to the aquatic life, Joanne Moles, principal tutor with Swim Ireland and lecturer in physical education in the University of Limerick, says "there is no rush in learning to swim". That said, she believes that swimming is natural for children and dismisses the idea of a "natural fear of water" as a "parents' construction".
Taking the lead from the American College of Paediatricians, she says that one year is time enough for babies to be brought to a pool.
Swimming in a pool would be much more enjoyable for all concerned when a child has the verbal skills to interact and respond to the experience, she says. She points to the fact that until children are physiologically and anatomically able to lie flat in a pool they won't be able to learn formal skills.
Responding to links made by one study between asthma among children and swimming pools, she points out that most babies and children spend very limited amounts of time in the actual pool environment.
She does voice what she terms "gentle concerns" about formal baby swimming classes, saying that they are just another barrier between parent-child bonding.
"What they do is put another person between the child and the experience, someone who is interpreting the child's experience for them," she says.
Parent and baby will have a much richer experience by splashing around themselves, she says.
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• Swim Ireland 01-625 1120 or see swimireland.ie
• National Aquatic Centre 01-646 4300 or see nationalaquaticcentre.ie
• Galway Baby Swim
087-964 1246 or see edenmassagegalway.com