Baby Boomer gets a helping hand in the pool from American swimming legend dad Michael Phelps. Photo / Supplied.
Baby Boomer gets a helping hand in the pool from American swimming legend dad Michael Phelps. Photo / Supplied.
Swimming superstar Michael Phelps - and his baby son Boomer - have signed on to help Kiwi kids learn water safety, and hopefully cut our country's youth drowning rate.
The most successful Olympian ever with 28 medals, Phelps has teamed up with Water Safety New Zealand, Plunket, Parents Centre and Huggies Little Swimmers in a water intuition campaign that kicks off this week.
Phelps, who holds the record for Olympic gold medals with 23, will feature in videos with baby Boomer, blowing bubbles in the water and playing under a sprinkler.
Baby Boomer shows off his Little Swimmers, 4000 of which will soon carry water safety tips for parents. Photo / Supplied
The 32-year-old American will give simple tips about how he and Boomer, get water-ready for summer in the video clips which will air on Facebook from December.
Liz Metz of Kimberly-Clark New Zealand, the owners of Huggies nappies, said the team at Huggies Little Swimmers swimpants were grateful to Phelps and his wife Nicole for supporting the campaign.
"To have a world-famous swimming superstar teaching his baby son how to blow bubbles in our water-safe campaign this summer is amazing.
"In the videos Michael and Nicole Phelps show us how to get into the water with our littlies, hold them close, keep them safe and enjoy the water together."
New Zealand's water safety record for children has become significantly worse in recent years according to figures in the Water Safety New Zealand Drowning Prevention Report 2016.
It shows hospitalisations of Kiwi kids under the age of five, from accidental immersion in water, more than doubled last year to 42, compared with 20 in 2015.
Hospitalisations are defined in the report as non-fatal drownings resulting in a hospital stay longer than 24 hours.
Drowning is classed as the respiratory impairment of lungs from submersion in liquid which can be fatal or non-fatal.
Fatalities for the same age group were shown to have reduced to three last year, but that level still falls short of Water Safety New Zealand's zero target.
Michael Phelps and wife Nicole teach little Boomer positive water experiences. Photo / Supplied
Chief executive Jonty Mills said parents are right to want their babies to have positive water experiences at a young age.
"The most important water safety message when it comes to under-fives is constant supervision," Mills said.
"They should always be within your line of sight and within arms' length for toddlers when in or around water. It takes less than a minute for a child to drown."
Mills supported the work being done to help make lessons more accessible to families involving a series of initiatives that begin this week. They include:
• Baby swim scholarships at some swim schools to parents who enrol babies aged 6-18 months in water confidence lessons in term one of next year;
• Half price baby water confidence lessons through YMCA and Plunket in Auckland;
• Subsidised lessons through Parents Centre and some swim schools;
• Video clips of Phelps and his family on social media from December.
A Huggies survey found 45 per cent of Kiwi adults recall a frightening water experience from their childhood.
Those parents who had a water scare were shown in the survey to have heightened awareness of the need for children to have positive water experiences and lessons at a young age.
It found 55 per cent of parents in New Zealand had taken their children to swimming lessons.
Plunket safety advisor Sue Campbell said the campaign partners were working to encourage parents to take their children to lessons early, with the new efforts to address the cost barrier for parents.
YMCA Swim School quality services manager Karla McCaughan said the aim was to educate adults about the need for vigilant supervision of their children, and teach children to wait until an adult was with them every time the go near water.
"We will start to see a generational change. We say: 'Teach the children, educate the parents, change the culture'."
