Summer is here and the kids are out of school. With the hot weather settling into the Cincinnati area, it is also swimming pool season.

Although swimming is a great way to have fun and cool off during the summer heat, swimming safety and preventing child injuries should be at the forefront of parents' and pool owners' minds. According to a report in the Journal of Pediatrics, a child dies every five days in America from drowning accidents in portable pools. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drowning is the number one cause of death for children ages 1 to 4 and the number two cause of accidental death for children under 15 years of age.

Researchers have found backyard pools have the potential to be much more dangerous than larger public pools that have extensive safety precautions. In addition, because of a lack of adult supervision, portable swimming pools can be far more dangerous than their larger counterparts can.

According to researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio and Independent Safety Consulting, a consulting services firm, portable pools often lack the safety requirements that traditional pools have and these smaller pools seem less dangerous to parents and children alike. This may lead some parents and pool owners to lower their guard.

Children can drown in even a small amount of water. Safety experts recommend that adults should always supervise their children closely, even at larger pools where lifeguards are present. Furthermore, before a child swims, it is helpful for that child to have some swimming instruction. Most importantly, children should never be allowed to swim alone.

When a child is injured, it is not the child's fault. Thankfully, accidental drowning deaths are preventable when pool owners and adults take pool safety seriously.

Source: WBAL, "Swimming Safety Starts At Home," 6/22/2011