Make sure your pool is child-safe this summer

Consumer Reports News: May 25, 2007 02:57 AM

To most kids — and many adults as well — Memorial Day is synonymous with the official opening of swimming-pool season.

We would also like to mark that day with a big splash: We'd like to remind one and all that there's a very serious side to swimming pools: Every year, about 260 children under five drown in swimming pools. As the Consumer Product Safety Commission notes, that amounts to almost one nursery school class a month. An additional 2,725 children are treated annually in emergency rooms for pool submersion injuries, most occurring in residential pools.

So whether it's your own pool or a neighbor's, please make sure the owner has taken multiple steps to reduce the risk of injuries and drownings. That's particularly true of the increasingly popular inflatable pools that can be purchased rather inexpensively at mass merchants. These pools, which usually stand 18 inches to 4 feet high, can hold from 200 to more than 5,000 gallons of water. They may be quick and easy to install, but they are still a drowning hazard, particularly because many if not most of these pools are installed without fencing and other barriers or layers of protection from drowning. Inflatable pool have flexible sides that are all too easy for a child to topple over, and they are currently not covered by a safety standard (though we are working on that). Between 2004 and 2006, the CPSC received 47 reports of childhood deaths related to inflatable pools.

Although these pools may not always be required by local zoning laws to have barriers around them, owners should follow the same care and procedures that they would if they owned an in-ground pool. That means a fence and other layers of protection to prevent a young child from gaining unsupervised access to the pool. Specifically:

Never leave children unattended or unsupervised, even for a moment, in or around swimming pools.
Whether it's an in-ground pool or an inexpensive inflatable one, you need to place a fence completely around it. The fence should be 4-feet high, non-climbable, and with self-closing and self-latching gates. If your house opens directly to the pool, make sure you install an alarm on the door from the house to alert you if your youngster may have gone out to the pool.
When pool is not in use, use a pool safety cover. Never allow a child to climb on the covers since they can collapse and entangle a child under water.
Use a a pool alarm. Pool alarms are designed to raise an alert if someone enters the water when he or she is not supposed to. Since not all pool alarms work well. Check out our report on pool alarms for more details.
Make sure your pool drain has a safety cover or a safety vacuum release system that prevents entrapment or entanglement.
For above ground pools, remove ladders when the pool is not in use, as well as any toys or floats that could attract children to the water.
Be prepared for the unexpected and for emergencies by keeping life preservers, rescue hooks and a cordless phone with emergency numbers near the pool. And parents who own pools should learn CPR.
Make sure your pump and filter are protected by a ground-fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) to prevent electric shock.
Drain wading and kiddie pools when not in use and turn them upside down.

Remember, if a child is missing, check the pool first. Drownings happen quickly — and often quietly. As CPSC chairman Nancy Nord notes: "Parents may think that if their child falls in the water, they will hear lots of splashing and screaming, and that they will be able to come to the rescue. Many times, however, children slip under the water silently. Even people near the pool often report hearing nothing out of the ordinary."

So on this Memorial Day, let's not make drownings another cause for memorials.

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