Infant swimming: a contribution to children’s health

Abstract

Nowadays, infant swimming is a rather relevant topic. Swimming has a beneficial effect on the child’s body as a whole, strengthening its nervous system and improving sleep, appetite, and adaptive capacity, as well as stimulating metabolism.Aim. To study infant swimming as a progressive direction in improving child health from birth to 3 years old. The objective was to study the importance of infant swimming, consider its main techniques, highlight indications and contraindications, conduct and analyze a survey among parents on this topic. Early start of swimming significantly improves the child’s health, or reduces the current health problems. The skill of independent swimming is not the main goal. The main goal is effective hardening, strengthening immunity and health, correcting identified abnormalities and stimulating proper development.The division of the education period of infants into stages is conditional and depends on the individual characteristics of a child. It is important to observe the basic hardening principles: consistency and graduality.Also, we conducted a survey of parents to study and understand their opinions on teaching swimming. Relevant conclusions were drawn from the results. The relevance of this topic and the need for more active promotion of infant swimming is evidenced by the fact that 69% of parents surveyed consider it necessary to provide home courses on infant swimming. Also, 84% spoke in favor of the need to open specialized centers for teaching swimming for children from birth to 3 years old.