Barn med ensamstående förälder riskgrupp för drunkning. Även barn från Mellanöstern och Iran löper ökad risk, visar deskriptiv studie
Sammanfattning
Drowning in childhood has fortunately become a rare event in Sweden, where today about only ten children 0 -17 years of age are drowning each year (about 0.6 child per 100 000). This means that further prevention has to be based on in-depth studies of each single case, which was performed at the six Swedish departments of forensic medicine for the 106 cases of child drowning during the study period 1998 - 2007. We found that no child had drowned while boating, whereas one third of the children had drowned when swimming or playing in lakes and that pre-school children, boys in particular, had drowned in shallow ponds. The risk for drowning was higher for preschool children with single parents, for children originating from the Middle East and for children with neurological disabilities, epilepsy in particular. To prevent further drowning, pre-school children need a more intense supervision, immigrant children and their parents need swimming education and a higher awareness of the increased risk for children with epilepsy is required.