You've probably seen them on TV: classes of infants clad in swimsuit diapers or only in what Mother Nature gave them, floating effortlessly through the water, looking like little mermaids. You want your child to learn basic water safety, but is tossing your baby into a pool the way to teach him?

"Newborn babies instinctively know not to breathe while their heads are submerged in water," says Certified Nurse-Midwife Charlene Taylor, who has assisted in more than 50 water births near her Boston, Mass. home. "From what I've seen, it seems as if they know how to swim instinctively. Many of them open their eyes and move their limbs and propel themselves forward in the tubs."

According to Taylor, until the baby's body is touched by air, all the oxygen they need is delivered via the placenta, not from his or her lung power. "In water births, their new environment is not much different than what they left behind," she says.

"But once the baby uses those lungs, their ability to automatically hold their breaths while submerged begins to disappear," says Dr. Brian Scopec, an obstetrician who practices in upstate New York. "Because of that, the American Academy of Pediatrics discourages teaching infants to swim by forcibly dunking them or submerging them in water." Since there haven't been many studies to either support or deny this theory, Dr. Scopec says there is really no information on exactly what age the breath-holding instinct disappears all together.

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