Swimming Pool Safety

Kids Health, the Child Health Promotion Unit at the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network has launched a swimming pool safety campaign ‘Kids Can Drown Without a Sound’.

The campaign aims to reduce the number of drowning deaths and non-fatal drowning incidents for children in portable and permanent pools.

Drowning is the leading external cause of death for children under five years of age.

In NSW, in 2013-14, six children under five years of age drowned. A further 70 children were admitted to hospital for near drowning. Children under five years of age have the highest mortality rate out of any age group, with approximately 60% of drowning occurring in swimming pools.

Children can drown in as little as 5cm of water, when left unsupervised. Pools are an obvious risk but children can also drown in baths, spas, dams, rivers, creeks, garden ponds and nappy buckets.

Over a quarter of all drowning deaths among children occur in portable swimming pools. Although the Swimming Pools Act 1992 (NSW) mandates a surrounding fence and self-latching gate for any pool that can be filled with more than 30 cm of water, the majority of the portable pools in these incidences do not have a fence.

Further helpful information can be found on the NSW Kids Health website.