I watched the launch of Fibby with a certain amount of surprise. It's a 'life vest' for children, designed by a father. The reasoning behind the launch makes you frown, because it talks about a natural swimming posture and water safety for this father's children. Nothing wrong with that in principle.
The trouble is that, according to the website, it's aimed at children aged 2, 3 and 4. The picture being painted is that this self-help device should be the answer to drowning, on the grounds that children sometimes slip out of sight. But is this really the way to draw attention to the problem? A sort of orange backpack that shifts along when a child starts to sink? Or is it a form of false security, where parents pin their hopes on worrying less about their children? The crowdfunding campaign, meant to cover the creation costs and already well over its target, rather proves the point.
The fact that things are being invented to improve water safety is a good thing, of course. The problem is that people are now wrongly getting the idea that this is the ideal system against drowning. The site states: that's why he came up with Fibby, a device that children wear on their backs. "Thanks to the tilting mechanism, children are pushed into their natural swimming posture. Following their instinct, they then start treading water all by themselves, even at a very young age."
As someone with many years of hands-on experience, I can tell you that children of 2, 3 and 4 who haven't yet had swimming lessons will instinctively kick and wiggle their legs. That wiggling motion creates a downward force that pulls you under. Now, Fibby may well help to prevent this, but as the chair of the Nijmeegse Reddingsbrigade warns: "If children lose consciousness, with Fibby they immediately flip forward, face down in the water." That's because the tilting mechanism automatically pushes the child into that position.
In my view, people are being presented with far too rosy a picture of this system when it comes to safety. Supposedly it works better than armbands. On that point I can agree. But armbands also serve to signal that children don't have a swimming certificate and aren't yet water-competent. My sense is that this system misses its mark on a crowded beach, surrounded by all kinds of people, compared to those bright orange armbands. Quite apart from the fact that the product's marketing suggests children also learn to swim while using it. That already skews the basic stroke and parents' expectations in a negative way before children even start their swimming lessons.
As I've said before, I believe cooperation between federations and lifeguard brigades is crucial to making people aware of the dangers. All the scattershot efforts being fired off right now miss their target, and water safety in general is being put at risk. Water safety begins with the awareness and acknowledgement of the dangers of water. Only then can we look further. Don't fire off so much scattershot that it clouds people's awareness. Tackle it at the root.