Dr Rakesh Gupta gives out tips to pursue swimming in the right manner and stay healthy
There is a growing desire to enroll children in such sporting activities, which not only keep them physically fit, but aid their mental abilities as well. Swimming often pops up as the perfect answer to these queries. While it is considered a good exercise for many ailments, it is also a life skill. But the activity, which offers numerous health benefits, can also end up hurting if not pursued in the right manner. Basic tips parents must adhere to are:
Health check-up: Before enrolling for swimming lessons, get your child checked by a good doctor. Kids having skin infections, issues related to their ears, nose, throat and eyes, must undergo required medication. Doctors often suggest some precautions for children who are underweight and or obese.
Cleanliness of the pool: It is an important parameter to check, when the same pool is used by many people with different health conditions. Parents must enquire about the water-replacement and cleaning schedule of the pools. It is not advisable to catch an infection while swimming in dirty or unclean pools.
Availability of life guard: It is mandatory for all the pools to have trained lifeguards in required numbers. Most often the situation is that the guy posing as lifeguard is a trained swimmer with no additional skills for saving or reviving a person during any emergency.
First aid facility: Government rules clearly say that all the swimming pools must have first aid facility and a first aid room. It should be located close to the pool area. In case of any emergency, the person must be taken into the first aid area and administered with the required procedure and call an ambulance.
Overcrowding: Most of the people visiting the swimming pools come looking for a leisurely activity and to beat the heat. Instead of taking laps in the pools, they may just stay in the water to chill out. It ends up overcrowding the pool. Avoid pools that are overcrowded.
Training and trainer: Make sure that your kid undergoes the mandatory swimming training before jumping into the water on his own.
A big no to following others: Make sure that your kid is not following others and trying to copy their activities. Tell him to go slow and spend the required number of days before going ahead.
Safety equipment: For kids it is important to have all the safety gears — floaters, eye glasses, ear plugs, cap, towel etc handy. All the grown up people who are good swimmers know that kids often develop a fear of water, if their first encounter with the pool is not happy. Also make sure that floaters are not damaged.
Hydration: Most people don’t know this, but even though it is an aquatic exercise, swimming is dehydrating in nature. It actually makes people sweat a lot. Therefore taking enough fluid or plain water is important.
Diet: Make sure that the child is taking all his meals properly, with balanced nutrition. Hydration and diet are required to avoid muscular cramps and fatigue.
Every water body is not a pool: A very important lesson for all the kids, who after a fortnight start believing that they are trained swimmers. A swimming pool has a very controlled environment and it does not teach them the ways to handle sudden depth in water and strong waves. Kids should never treat other water bodies like ponds, lakes and rivers as swimming pools.
A sporting activity, but not a playground: Kids should not treat swimming pools as their playgrounds. It’s good to swim, but stay away from treating it like a regular playground.
The writer is senior consultant, Department of Internal Medicine, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals