Drowning Risk In Portable Pools

Summer begins tomorrow 6/21/11, and despite portable kids pools being a great way to cool off in your own backyard, you have to be careful!

About 11% of all pool drowning deaths in children under 5 years of age occur in portable pools, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

About two dozen children each year drown in portable pools, according to a study published today in Pediatrics. Nearly all are under age 5.

Few people, will put a safety fence around a portable pool — one of the best ways to prevent drownings —basically because the fence would cost more than the pool, it is designed to protect.

Drowning is the leading cause of death from unintentional injuries in children ages 1 to 4, causing 29% of these deaths — more even than traffic accidents, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They include not only pools and lakes but bathtubs.

(from USA Today)