Medical aspects of drowning in children

Accidental, homicidal and suicidal drowning comprise a special challenge to the clinician and preventive medicine advocate, alike. In South-east Asia and Australasia, accidental immersion accidents rank highly among the causes of preventable child trauma. Bath-tub and bucket drownings affect infants and toddlers under the age of 12 months, and some 10 percent of fatal bucket-tub immersions affecting infants are the result of child abuse. Immersion accidents in the sea have special characteristics, not specifically as a result of differences in water osmolarity, but related to hypothermia, secondary lung complications, and immersion times. Swimming pool drownings are the major cause of preventable death affecting pre-school children in some regions of Australasia. Resuscitation of the near-drowned child is topical because, (a) of controversies about the optimality of mouth-to-nose expired air resuscitation (EAR) in infants under six months of age; (b) of controversies about the degree of brain damage among child survivors following intensive care salvage; and (c) the difficulties of having "every parent a first-aider". A major study of childhood immersions (The Brisbane Drowning Study has shown that of all survivors, some 70 percent will be completely normal, 30 percent will suffer some selective deficit (with wide disparities on sub-scale scores on formal IQ testing), and 3 percent will live in a permanent vegetative state. Vigorous preventative campaigns using the triad of (a) public media education and campaigns, (b) better safety standards and safety devices, and (c) safety legislation, can reduce both the population risk and the individual clinical severity of immersion accidents.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)