ABC Swim - Reflexes - The Natural Stuff

Babies are born with natural involuntary reflexes - Reflexes are “An involuntary response to an external stimulus”. We work with the body’s natural reflexes and encourage the development from reflexes to deliberate action. You will probably know of some of the reflexes and heard of others but the ones most often talked about in relation to swimming are:

The 'gag' reflex or Laryngeal Reflex is activated when water enters the mouth. The glottis and epiglottis close preventing water from entering the throat and providing a water tight seal to the lungs while your baby is submerged. This automatic response is eventually replaced by conscious breath.

The mammalian dive reflex (often confused with the gag reflex) is activated when washing your baby's face with cool water and we use it when teaching your baby to swim. When baby’s face enters the water covering their forehead and nose area; submerging the face the body automatically redistributes the blood flow ensuring the 'key' organs such as the brain and heart, receive a constant supply of oxygen. The 'Diving Reflex' is perfectly natural and slowly lessens from around 9 months of age. Gradually this reflex turns into the 'Dive Response' which continues into adulthood. As your baby is only submerged for a maximum of 3 seconds, it is the 'Dive Response' which helps them as they learn to swim and not the mammalian dive reflex that we want to be activating.

The Amphibian Reflex helps with swimming because it causes the arms, legs and torso of your baby to move in spurts, so we can incorporate techniques to turn this into a voluntary action.

If you want to know more information about reflexes you could read the book Reflexes, Learning and Behaviour by Sally Goddard and for more information on the principles of baby swimming that we teach we would highly recommend the Water Babies book by Françoise Barbira Freedman, the founder of Birthlight.