Injury Prevention Centre's

Prescription 4 Safety

Drowning

  • Ensure your child wears a properly fitted lifejacket or personal floatation device when they are in or around water. Children under the age of 5 do not have the physical skills to perform swimming strokes on their own (Parachute, 2024).
  • Install safe pool fencing with a self-closing and self-latching gate to prevent children from having access to unsupervised bodies of water. Children ages one to four are most at risk of drowning in a backyard pool (Parachute, 2024).
  • Empty buckets, wading pools, coolers, and anything else that can hold water after you are done with them.

Resources

The Injury Prevention Centre is part of the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta and is dedicated to helping Albertans and our governments make safe choices the easy choices.

The Injury Prevention Centre receives core business funding from the Ministry of Primary and Preventive Health Services and is part of the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. Provision of funding by Primary and Preventive Health Services does not signify that this project represents the policies or views of Primary and Preventive Health Services.

© Copyright 2026 - Injury Prevention Centre, University of Alberta.

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