SAN BRUNO, Calif. — For Robin Cleary, watching her 16-month-old daughter, Neave, jump into a swimming pool brings a wave of parental pride, not fear.
Cleary enrolled Neave at the popular San Bruno infant swimming school La Petite Baleen when her daughter was 5 months old, before she could sit up or crawl. Since then, Neave has graduated from brief submerging to swimming solo toward Mom in short bursts.
"I wanted her to be comfortable with water from the start," Cleary said, "before she got older and became fearful of it. ... Now she sees the swimming pool and she gets excited."
Ironically, that excitement concerns the American Academy of Pediatrics, which in 2006 released its latest version of a well-publicized policy statement that concluded, "Children are not developmentally ready for formal swimming lessons until after their fourth birthday."
The statement cautioned that swimming infants and toddlers — cute as they may be when they dogpaddle — were luring parents into a false sense of security.
"Teaching swimming that early gives parents the potential to assume their children have become drown-proof," said Dr. Marilyn Bull, a neurodevelopmental pediatrician at Indiana University's Riley Hospital for Children. She chaired the academy committee that prepared the statement. She said research suggests young children are not mentally capable of understanding the danger of swimming.
"Do they really want to reduce their child's fear of water at that age?" Bull asked. "If there's one thing we've learned over time, parents tend to overestimate their own child's cognitive skills and underestimate their physical abilities."
In June, La Petite Baleen will open its third San Francisco-area site: a state-of-the-art facility that will cater to an estimated 6,000 kids per week, making it the largest swim school for infants and toddlers in the United States, its owners say.
The opening mirrors a growing popularity of infant swim schools nationwide. Their numbers are up from 290 to 375 in the past three years, the U.S. Swim School Association reports.
It's now common to find infant swim classes offered through the YMCA, American Red Cross and city parks and recreation departments.
Of all children under age 14 who died in the United States in 2004, 26 percent — about 350 a year — died from drowning, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the overall U.S. drowning rate has declined since the late 1980s, drowning is still the leading cause of unintentional death for 1- and 2-year-olds.
Despite the academy's stance, 5 million to 10 million children are enrolled in infant swim programs, the American Academy of Pediatrics reports.
"This growth does not change our message," Bull said of the growing numbers of infant swim schools.
When then-schoolteachers John and Irene Kolbisen opened their first La Petite facility in Half Moon Bay in 1979, teaching infants to swim was an instinctive move, Irene Kolbisen said. She had grown up with a swimming pool in her back yard, and her husband swam in college.
Seven days after their first daughter's birth, Irene Kolbisen said, entering the pool was a bonding exercise with her infant. The warm temperature was reminiscent of the womb. "It felt very natural to us," she said.
The Kolbisens were among the first to open privately owned schools in the country. After the Half Moon Bay facility reached capacity, the couple opened the San Bruno site, which teaches 5,000 kids a week.
During the late '80s, as the national drowning rate was peaking, other infant swim schools began to open, mostly in Florida and Arizona, and with differing swim theories. In the most extreme cases, schools boasted they could teach infants how to "back float," which they said would make children "drown-proof" if they accidentally fell into a residential pool. The Kolbisens disapprove of the term "drown-proof"; instead, they support teaching swimming and water safety to both children and parents.
At La Petite Baleen, there's a level of seriousness despite the games and play toys. The pool is called an "aquatic classroom" and instructors are referred to as teachers. Staffers go through 40 hours of training and attended regular clinics, John Kolbisen said.
He said parents enroll in his school to further bond with their children, have some fun and give them life skills, such as overcoming fears, building confidence and developing athleticism.
Kolbisen is working with the U.S. Swim School Association, a trade group he helped found, to develop accreditation guidelines so parents can differentiate the "drown-proof" schools from those that practice more play and water safety.
Dr. Gary Smith, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital at Ohio State University, said the academy may soften its view on infant swimming if future studies prove the classes decrease drowning rates.
While no current peer-reviewed studies compare the drowning rate between infant swimmers and children who did not take the classes, studies are under way, according to the National Drowning Prevention Alliance, a Southern California group.
Meanwhile, enrollment at La Petite Baleen's Presidio facility already has reached 1,000, with its opening three months away.
On a recent morning at the school's San Bruno facility, Kolbisen said he's long been aware of the academy's policy statement, which he suggests is well intended but perhaps overly cautious.
He pointed to 2-year-olds kicking and laughing in close reach of instructors. "Do children get anything out of it?" he asked. "The proof's right there. What are their faces telling you?"