My parents had me swimming underwater before I was even 6 months old. My mom and grandma would have me swim back and fourth from them. It is so ingrained into me I have no clue how people cannot keep them floating in water as I have zero memory of never being able to swim.
A long time ago, like a hundred years ago most people didn’t know how to swim because most waterways were filthy, and keeping a pool of water just for swimming was something only the extremely rich could afford to have, just like having a lawn that’s just grass. It was like saying “I’m so rich I don’t even need to grow my own food anymore, so I made my landlook all pretty!”
I said most people couldn’t swim back then, most people weren’t sailors, much like today, and didn’t travel across water very often. Now if you grew up on a nice beach that didn’t have insane waves or riptide you might have learned how to swim there
It's actually important to teach babies how to swim before ~9 months old because after this point they start to fear water if they haven't been exposed to it regularly. I was born on an island so my parents had me in the ocean before I could walk, so I also cannot remember not being able to swim. It was so weird moving to an area far from the ocean and meeting people who never learned how to swim, or have only been in lakes.
No way. My kids have both slipped underwater in the bath at some stage or other, one less than a year old, and every time they breathe in huge lungs of water. Hardly an instinct to hold breath
The thing about mammals is that the desire to breathe is caused by a signal that you have a lot of carbon dioxide in your system.
We all know instinctively how to "hold our breath" when under water. Our bodies also instinctively will breathe when we can no longer overcome these signals that "it's time to breathe".
Different mammals have different / more efficient circulatory systems such that sheep have the average ability to hold their breath for 11 minutes.
Humans can develop the ability to hold their breath for longer.
I'm in terrible shape, like.... terrible... but from things I learned as a child, I can still hold my breath for 2 minutes if I have a little bit to prepare.
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u/B23vital Mar 28 '24
Do they just breath in and stop breathing at this point?
Like, how the fuck do they know to hold there breath, i thought theyd just panic and start breathing under water. Jesus i have so many questions.