Aquatic imprinting of babies

Success of baby swimming is real and connected to imprinting in a sensitive period.  It is based on innate possibilities in first months to one year after birth.  Even when submerged they are stimulated by interacting parents (or trainers).  Missing early imprinting can damage basic behaviour for many birds and mammals, our species included as stated by Eibl-Eibesfeldt⁸ and Alcock¹.  In psychology and neuropsychology the same is mentioned and sometimes compared to ethological definitions in biology as Balatskii ² did:

Imprints are tinges of human instincts, which were studied, particularly, by K.  Lorenz.     
Many of the currently dominating theses concerning the imprinting process are either disputable or vague (1, p.  196).
What we know about imprinting is as follows; first, imprints occupy an intermediate place between genetic imperatives (instincts) and conditioning.  Second, they are formed accidentally (their character cannot be predicted).  Third, they are realized during critical periods called moments of imprint vulnerability (4, p.  37), when the individual cannot resist external directives.  Fourth, imprints are of two types: good (positive directives) and bad (negative directives). ”

Baby swimming courses ascertain human adaptation under aquatic circumstances as an ethological preset sensitive period.  Safe aquatic behaviour is fulfilled for young human babies if they interact with parents (including brothers, sisters and other siblings).  It shows as result positive affectivity between children and parents.  This makes the ethological observation significant in two ways .
Missing this for older children lead to problems with learning to swim and dive. It takes more time to adjust and for a number also to overcome hydrophobia.  But it does not make swimming impossible forever.  It differs substantially from missing the imprinting phases for developing much more complex abilities for speech and language³⁰.  Because learning to swim and dive is obvious possible for adults later, I prefer to label the time frame shown in baby swimming as sensitive’ and pertinent not critical’.

The three phases described are constantly observed in baby swimming courses.  McGraw did so when exposing her boys very young, but the start is still early at four to six months.  The reason to start later is generally linked to the baby's immune system that is not fully developed until about six months.  Earlier start could be real in primitive’, not dense populations where mothers are passing immunoglobulin antibodies by breastfeeding in a substantial longer phase, sometimes even for more years.

Statements about starting aquatic activities with babies mention first swimming lizard like’ ²¹ as shown in fig.  3 and fig 5.  Then rotating legs in one direction and popping-up floating in a position on their back as if wearing a life jacket.
Some of the reported movements in testing very young babies in water were ethological described earlier by Eibl-Eibesfedt ⁸, but not explicit as aquatic’ trait:

Swimming movements can be released in infants that are a few weeks old by placing them into the water in a prone position and merely holding them up on their chin.  They paddle in a coordinated fashion with their hands and legs.  The behaviour disappears at 3 to 4 months.

Fig.  5.  Lizard like swimming movements of Johnny ^{14 17a 21}

The swimming movements are elicited when Johnny was exposed to water, one of the twins Johnny and Jimmy of Myrtle McGraw, 11 days old ²¹.  A lizard-swimming fragment of a mechanical simulation of salamander locomotion14 was recently added to the film about Johnny ^17a.
The floating effect’ is described on a diversity of sites about baby swimming.  A good and even important example is Miles story, Drowning prevention strategy for infants and young children”; a film published by ISR ^{3 17b}.  The baby had 3 weeks of ISR lessons prior to having his simulated fully clothed self-rescue videotaped.  Fig.  6 shows a baby turning upward (see also 7b).

Fig.  6.  Drowning prevention strategy for infants and young children ISR YMCA ^17b

It depicts what McGraw described (fig.  3, 1-2-3-4): submerged, they hold in their breath and start with swimming motions (fig.  7a).  They show a rotation (fig.  7b).  Floating on back, face above water, they start breathing and rather relaxed crying and babbling (fig.  7c).

 a

 
  b

 c

Fig.  7.  Three stages © DJW Meijers 2009

The sensitive period of our species ends after a start at four to six months in about a year.  It reveals the outcome of a genetically preset sensitive (sensible) period for imprinting with an important role of partaking parents.   But accepting we’ have instinctive’ behavior and beyond this innate imprinted’ learning phases as newborns is still hotly debated. In my view the link neuropsychology picked up with original definitions of imprint in ethology for humans is positive.  It shows a lot more open mindedness about the H.  sapiens position between other mammals.  Palmer²⁸ pointing at the role of this imprinting in Bonding Matters, The Chemistry of Attachment’ mentions the situation that still needs improvement:

Sadly, over the last century parents have been encouraged by industry-educated "experts" to ignore their every instinct to respond to baby's powerful parenting lessons.  Psychologists, neurologists, and biochemists have now confirmed what many of us have instinctually suspected: that many of the rewards of parenthood have been missed along the way, and that generations of children may have missed out on important lifelong advantages. ”

In Water babies of Freedman ¹⁰ the work of Liselott Diem ⁷ in the 1970's is mentioned. 
The same goes for baby-swimming organisations in many different countries. 
What was shown in systematic testing kindergarten children between 1974 to 1976 by Liselott Diem and students of Cologne Sports High School in Germany is, that interaction with parents and peers does more. 
Learning to swim at an early age demonstrated advanced development in motor skills, reaction time (reflexes) and concentration (focus). 
But than extra positive evidence was found of social interaction, self-confidence, independence and coping with new unfamiliar situations. 
Overall, children were better adjusted than their peers who had not participated in early swimming programs. 
Increase in both self-esteem and independence due to baby swimming were cited as contributory factors.

It confirmed that children started swimming at an early age benefited of positive interaction and bonding with parents.  As Federal Minister for Education and Science she therefore propagated swimming for babies and teaching movement and gymnastics for pre-school children and kindergartens.
Sigmundsson and Hopkins³² recently did explore the effects of baby swimming on subsequent motor abilities.  In this study also a group of baby swimming active children (2 - 4 month old) was compared with a group that had not this experience.  It again repeats results of McGraw and Diem, and shows a correct view about stimulating aquatic activities with babies and toddlers they note in the following key messages:
• Physical exercise facilitates the development of motor skill

• Baby swimming programmed may have positive effects on motor skill development
• Baby swimming programmed targets activities promoting eye–hand coordination and  the provision of vestibular stimulation

• Baby swimming may have rather specific effects in the motor domain, its potential  positive benefits should also be explored in other areas of relevance for child  development
What  described by Bell et. al.  in Concept clarification of neonatal neurobehavioural organization⁴  again is similar:

What is already known about this topic:

• In the neonatal period (the first 28 days after birth) there is a sensitive and dynamic unfolding of development unique to the neonate.

• This is therefore an opportune time to assess and intervene to promote optimal neurobehavioural organization.

• The policy and culture of many maternal-child units demand clinicians to be taskrather than synchrony-oriented and thus there are missed opportunities to enhance neonatal neurobehavioural organization.

What is added:

• Inconsistent terminology, lack of a gold standard measurement, limited understanding of the concept's interplay between environmental interaction and genetic expression, and limited evidence of the concept's predictive relationship between the neonatal period and later developmental trajectories were identified in the literature.

• Neonatal neurobehavioural organization is the ability of the neonate to use goaldirected states of consciousness, in reciprocal interaction with the caregiving environment, to facilitate the emergence of differentiating, hierarchical and coordinated neurobehavioural systems.

• Maturation of neonatal neurobehavioural organization is evidenced by the neonate's ever-increasing resiliency and the capacity to learn from complex stimuli.

Partly mentioned in the conclusion:

Neonatal neurobehavioural organization is a global phenomenon that captures the essence of healthy full-term neonatal function as resilient, individualized, complex, experiential and holistic.

A clear conceptual definition will aid the international community (1) to communicate effectively within and between disciplines, (2) to apply evidence-based research findings, and (3) encourage the development of valid and reliable instruments to capture the multiple dimensions of NNBO.  Clarification of NNBO directs attention to the infant's experience, which facilitates sculpting of early NNBO.

Ethology fits to al described interactions and is recognized ultimately inMyrtle McGraw's Unrecognized Conceptual Contribution to Developmental Psychology of Gottlieb¹²:

In the late nineteenth century and through much of the twentieth century, the notion of the early developmental autonomy of motor behavior pervaded behavioral embryology and the developmental psychology of infant behavior.  In the midst of this predeterministic climate of opinion concerning motor development, Myrtle McGraw briefly and tentatively broached the probabilistic epigenetic notion of a bidirectional or reciprocal relationship between structural maturation and function, whereby structural maturation of the nervous system is influenced by functional activity as well as the other way around.  Myrtle McGraw thus anticipated our current understanding of the role of experience in the cortical and motor maturation of infants in the first year of postnatal life.  It is all the more remarkable that she made this contribution when the theoretical climate of opinion was epitomized by predeterministic epigenetic thinking.  In the same vein, McGraw's second unrecognized contribution is her clear formulation of a suitably flexible critical period concept in 1935, one that is consonant with our current understanding.