Occasionally, I will see a video posted of an instructor throwing a baby into water and watching them flounder about until they right themselves and float. The comments are a mix of “that’s terrible, what is the instructor doing?” and “you guys are clueless, this is how they train the babies.”

My question is, while tossing babies in the water after training may be the standard, and might save their life one day, isn’t there a risk that they will inhale water when being randomly dunked under water and panicking?

I know humans innately stop inhaling when in water until we can’t hold our breath anymore, including babies to an extent, but I don’t know if babies are as capable of this as a grown human. Especially when they do NOT expect being dunked under. I’ve seen adults and kids not expect that, and they end up coughing out tons of water. If water gets in the lungs, can’t it kill you? Cause a lung infection? “Dry drowning”? I never see this talked about in relation to the baby swim training.