By Maria Cendejas

A new report finds that the rate of children hospitalized yearly due to drowning-related incidents has dropped by half since the early 1990s, according to myhealthnewsdaily.

The biggest drop was found in the southern U.S., where drowning-related incidents fell from seven yearly hospitalizations per 100,000 children to three annual hospitalizations per 100,000 children.

"The report shows that we're doing a good job. If trends are going in the right direction, but there's still about 1,000 deaths from drowning in children per year, and that's too many," said lead author Stephen Bowman, an epidemiologist and professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy.

It's the first study that looks at trends in hospitalizations for drowning incidents in children.

It was published in the latest issue of the journal Pediatrics.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 10 people die from accidental drowning every day in the United States. Of these, 2 are children at the age of 14 years or younger.

In the U.S., drowning is the 2nd leading cause of accidental death in children ages 1-19.

Among children, infants and toddlers are the highest risk group. In 2007, almost 30% of children who died from accidental injury died from drowning.  Near drownings can cause brain damage, which can lead to long-term health complications such as memory problems, learning disabilities and permanent loss of basic functioning.

"Drowning is such a terrible, nasty injury because you're not getting enough oxygen. You can have a cardiac arrest and with medical assistance, your heart might be able pump again," said Dr. Linda Quan, a pediatric emergency room physician at Seattle Children's Hospital. She wasn’t involved with the work.

"But other organs including the brain may not be able to sustain such an injury," she said, Which may explain how even after resuscitation, a person can still die after being hospitalized.

Researchers looked at hospital data over a 16-year period and found the rates of hospitalization from drowning-related incidents declined in children younger than 19 years old.

Researchers found that from 1993 through 2008, the number of hospitalizations associated with drowning went down to about 2 cases from about 5 cases per 100,000 children.

They also observed a 40% drop in bathtub-related drowning hospitalizations in infants and toddlers.

Study authors said boys had a higher rate of having drowning injuries than girls.

The reason for the overall decline may be due to "educational campaigns that have been put into place to reduce drowning," Bowman said.

"Efforts such as putting fences around pools and encouraging parents to have kids in a supervised setting, are some of the things we'd like to believe are yielding positive results in reducing drowning," he said.

But Quan said she isn't entirely sure such efforts are the only reason for the decline.

"It could mean that kids aren't going to the beach as often, or maybe they're just sitting at home playing computer games. We don't really know for sure why there's a decline. We haven't had national focus, medical focus or family focus on preventing drowning. We haven't taken the same approach to preventing drowning like we have with motor vehicle accidents," Quan said.

It is important that parents follow the necessary steps to ensure their child is safe.

"Every family needs to think about how to prepare and respond to any water related activity," Quan said.

Some suggestions as follows may be helpful:

Bring a lifejacket with you when visiting a beach;

Swim only where there's a lifeguard;

Keep active watch on your child if they're near or in the water;

Before engaging in a water-related activities, set expectations and rules with your kids