Inflatable hot tubs are a great investment for a family. After all, what could be better than relaxing with the ones that you love? Hot tubs offer a great way to spend time together as a family, and have fun doing it, too. That being said, if your family includes small children, there are some important safety precautions that need to be taken to ensure that they stay safe in and around the water. You may have already “child-proofed” your home, removing or covering up potential safety hazards; the same now needs to be done outside of your home.
To help you do this, we have compiled a list of some of the most common causes of hot tub accidents in the US. The most common accidents that warranted emergency room visits were:
- Slipping (about 50% cases)
- Overexposure to heat (That's why none of the hot tubs go above 104°F [40°C]) (about 10% of cases)
- Drowning / Near-drowning (about 2.5% of cases)
These three types of incidents account for most of the hot tub accidents that have been recorded over the years and 7% of those accidents have resulted in the hospitalization of the victim. Knowing the potential hazards makes it much easier to safeguard our environments and to prevent such accidents from happening in the first place.
So, let's go through 5 Ways to Keep your Children Safe in a Hot Tub.
Prevention of Slipping
As you can see from the figures above, slipping represents the biggest danger associated with owning a pool or a hot tub. That’s why it is very important to ensure that you put slip-resistant bath mats in your tubs. If your hot tub is on a surface that can potentially become slippery, like concrete or tile, it is also important that you put mats down on these surfaces too. It’s a fairly simple measure that will have a profound impact on the safety of your hot tub environment.
Heat overexposure prevention
Heat overexposure is another potential hazard that can easily be prevented. It is important to regulate the water temperature when you expect children to stay in the hot tub. If you know that this is going to be the case, set the maximum temperature to ten or more degrees less than you might otherwise set it if only adults were in the tub. Moreover, it can also be helpful to limit the time that your children are allowed to spend in the tub at one time.
Children are more prone to overheating, as their bodies cannot thermoregulate as well, so it is important to take this into account when enjoying your hot tub with them.
Keep in mind that alcohol will make adults more susceptible to overheating.
Under no circumstances should children ever be left unattended around a hot tub or a pool. All of the hazards associated with having children around water are amplified when there is no one there to supervise them. Constant supervision is key, no matter what your children’s’ swimming skills are.
The supervision is not only to prevent them from drowning while swimming. Drowning can also result from slips or overheating. So in this sense, consider supervision to be the ultimate safety measure that reinforces all of the other measures that you may have already taken.
Install Hot Tub Cover whenever the hot tub is not in use
Hot tub covers prevent kids from falling into the hot tub. This makes them a cheap and effective safeguard that can protect against drowning. Not just that, they are essential for keeping the hot tub insulated. Even so, you have to make sure that the cover is not easily removed by your children. Try to find one that locks or that can be fixed in some way that will keep your kids out.
Have A Complete First Aid Box
Look, let’s face it, accidents will happen. There is no one measure that can be taken that is going to stop them from occurring at all. No matter how careful you may be, there are times when your children will play too hard or too carelessly and hurt themselves.
The best we can do is try and cover all of our bases by implementing as many overlapping safeguards as possible. Thus, having a first aid box in the house, or better yet - by the pool, is always a fantastic idea. At the very least, it will give you some peace of mind knowing that you have some tools nearby that you can use to deal with emergencies.
To recap, the best way to keep your hot tub area as safe as possible is to equip it with safety measures first, before children start using it. Lay down slip-resistant maps, install a hot tub cover, and make sure there is a first aid kid somewhere nearby. After that, your tub is ready to go! But it is important that children be supervised while they use it to reduce the risk of drowning or overheating.