Insights \ Health Hits

In an effort to beat the summer heat, I bought an 8-foot diameter by 30-inch deep inflatable pool last week. It sits in our garden next to the tomato bushes, and my wife and I jokingly call it the Kelley spa.

Ironically, the garden itself was once a 36,000-gallon in-ground pool. Out of an abundance of caution, we filled it in six years ago when our daughter began toddling. The diving board still sits affixed to one end, a visual non sequitur.

But now this addition, which is short enough for my 4-year-old son to climb in and out of unaided, is apparently a significant hazard itself. From 2001 to 2009 there ware 209 fatal and 35 nonfatal submersion events involving children younger than 12 in portable pools, according to a study published in Pediatrics.

Most of these accidents (94 percent) involved children like my son who are younger than 5; and a majority also involved boys playing in their own yard during the summer.

In the summer heat, such pools are seductive to adults--my wife and I took a dip over the weekend to cool off. But for an unattended child on a hot day, they can be irresistible. While I was changing a tire on my truck Saturday, my son was playing alongside the pool with a new popular toy--a car that submerses under water and is featured in the new Disney/Pixar movie "Cars 2."

Naturally, he would want to play with such a toy in the water, and it wouldn't have taken much for him to fall in head first. It wasn't obvious to me that he might be at greater risk, but I kept an eye on him anyway--something we do any time our children are around open water, which can be dangerous even in small amounts.

The study, called Pediatric Submersion Events in Portable Above-Ground Pools in the United States, 2001-2009 (.pdf), looked at data compiled by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Prior studies have focused on in-ground pools (the kind we filled in six years ago).

The study calls for manufacturers to add layers of protection--like fencing, pool alarms and safety covers--to portable pools to keep kids from falling in. That seems unlikely given the cheapness of the pools (ours cost $50).

But hopefully the study will get a lot of attention and parents will associate such summer fixtures as the risk they represent. I know we do.