By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer<\/p>\n
NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Doctors and others are sounding an alarm: More U.S. children have been drowning in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen drowning occurs, seconds matter,\u201d said Dr. Rohit Shenoi, the lead author of a recent American Academy of Pediatrics warning. \u201cQuick rescue and resuscitation can mean the difference between life, death and lifelong disability.\u201d<\/p>\n
About 4,000 to 5,000 Americans drown each year. Most are adults who die in natural bodies of water, such as lakes, ponds or oceans.<\/p>\n
But statistically speaking, drowning<\/a> is a much larger danger to children. It\u2019s the No. 1 cause of death for kids ages 1 to 4, and one of the top killers of children ages 5 to 14. The drowning rate is higher for white kids in the younger group, but much higher for Black, American Indian and Alaska Native children in the older group.<\/p>\n Drownings of very young children sometimes occur in bathtubs. But most, like Stewie Leonard\u2019s, occur in swimming pools.<\/p>\n A family tragedy leads to a foundation for water safety<\/p>\n The Stew Leonard\u2019s grocery chain offers a Disney-like shopping experience, featuring food-promoting animatronic characters like a dancing banana, a mooing cow and singing avocados. But several of its stores also have an animatronic creature that seems out of place: a life-jacketed duck named Stewie who sings about how not to drown.<\/p>\n The duck is named for the son of Stew Leonard, the grocery chain\u2019s chief executive. The boy was 21 months old when he drowned during a family vacation on the island of St. Martin in 1989.<\/p>\n More than a dozen adults and kids had gathered at a birthday party for Stewie\u2019s older sister, who was turning 3. Stew Leonard was outside hanging balloons and his wife was inside baking a cake.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw Stewie outside and I assumed that he (Leonard) was watching him,\u201d said his wife, Kim, noting that other relatives also were in the area of the pool.<\/p>\n \u201cWe never communicated with each other; \u2018You\u2019ve got him?\u2019\u201d said Kim Leonard, now 65. \u201cWhen everyone\u2019s watching, nobody\u2019s watching.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere were a couple of balloons floating in the water,\u201d Leonard, 71, recalled. \u201cAnd you know after a few minutes, sort of everybody was like, \u2018Where\u2019s Stewie?\u2019 Unfortunately I was the one who found him. He was face down in the pool.\u201d<\/p>\n His death led the couple to start a foundation<\/a> that pays for children\u2019s swimming lessons and promotes drowning prevention.<\/p>\n Why are more kids drowning?<\/p>\n Unintentional child drowning deaths in the U.S. fell from around 2,000 a year in the 1980s to below 1,000 a year by the early 2000s, thanks in part to public awareness campaigns, expanded access to swimming lessons, and adoption of pool fencing laws. Between 2000 and 2019, health officials saw a 38% drop<\/a>.<\/p>\n But then the trend reversed, with the number of child drowning deaths rising from 756 in 2019 to 865 in 2024, the most recent year for which complete data is available. The bulk of them were children younger than 5. The child drowning death rate also increased slightly, from 1.1 to 1.2 per 100,000 children.<\/p>\n What happened?<\/p>\n