Drowning is a known risk to young children and adults alike. While adults are more likely to drown in open bodies of water, such as lakes, rivers, or the ocean, children are more likely to drown in non-natural settings, such as pools and spas. In fact, these non-natural settings are the most common sites of childhood drowning in the U.S. ³. Children under 1 year old most often drown in bathtubs or buckets, children ages 1 to 4 are most likely to drown in pools or spas, and children over age 5 are more likely to drown in natural bodies of water. For children younger than 15 years old, there are approximately 6,700 pool- or spa-related emergency room visits, and 3,709 pool-or spa-related drowning fatalities every year. Of all incidents involving children under 15, 75% involve children younger than 5 years old ⁴.

Because a drowning victim can’t scream or splash for help when they are underwater and unable to swim, drowning is often silent ⁵, and a child can drown in as few as 60 seconds. In 86% of the 1,537 fatal and nonfatal submersion incidents among children ages 13 and younger occurring between 2000-2017, the child did not have permission to enter the water, and 80% of narratives indicated the child was alone at the time of the incident ³. In 2018, almost 900 U.S. children younger than 20 years old died of drowning, making drowning the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 4 and the third-highest cause of unintentional injury-related death for children ages 5 to 19 ⁴.

Epilepsy and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can also increase the risk of drowning in children. Children who suffer from seizures are 7.5 to 10 times more likely to have a fatal or nonfatal drowning. Children with ASD are 40 times more likely to die from injury, including the possibility of drowning ⁴. 

Caregiving books, blogs, and support groups are awash with advice for keeping children safe in and around pools, bathtubs, buckets, and even toilets. Parents and guardians are encouraged to utilize multiple layers of protection against their children drowning, such as putting fences around pools, putting alarms on pool covers, supervising swimming, enrolling children in swim lessons, being trained in CPR, and giving children life jackets ⁴.

Despite this advice, only 65% of children under 18 years old wear life jackets on boats. Reasons provided for not wearing life jackets include beliefs that risk of drowning is low, that life jackets are unattractive, uncomfortable, or restrictive, and that wearing a life jacket shows fear or inexperience. Parents of children who do not wear life jackets on boats self-reported that their proximity to the child is adequate protection, that a life jacket is on board in case of an emergency, or that the child has good swimming skills. While life jackets have reduced boat-related drowning morbidity by 50% ⁴, they are only effective at preventing drowning deaths if they are worn.

Ultimately, while developing a strong sense of water competency and risk awareness around pools can reduce risk, it is the act of deploying preventive efforts, like using life jackets, that can actively save children from accidental harm and drowning.

To help identify and certify safe life jackets, UL Standards & Engagement adopted the first edition of UL 1123, the Standard for Marine Special Purpose Water Safety Buoyant Devices, in 1971. The next year, the U.S. Coast Guard named Underwriters Laboratories Inc. (in a position now held by UL Solutions) the official testing service for PFDs. Initial requirements for certification of a PFD to UL 1123 included a capability to turn over an adult body lying face down in water within 15 seconds and a buoyancy capable of holding a user’s head above water.

Although there are regulated requirements for life jacket use on open water, no such regulation to support the use of specific life jackets in non-natural water, such as pools or spas, currently exists, which leaves the decision on which flotation devices to use in these instances — and whether to even use them at all — up to the consumer.

While the UL 1123 requirements for certification published in 1971 laid a foundation for PFD safety, they did not address children in and around water. And because U.S. Coast Guard data showed no reduction in child drowning deaths, updates to testing and certification protocols were made to better address the unique risks posed by child-specific flotation devices such as arm bands and puddle jumpers. As additional recreation activities for adults such as kiteboarding or board sailing took off in the early 2000s, it was recognized that the safety standard needed to be updated to protect users of all ages, and such updates were then made.

There are many types of PFDs covered by this Standard:

• Type II PFDs: near-shore use life jackets are intended to turn an unconscious person from a face down position in the water to a position where their respiration is not impeded and to be used in near-shore applications, such as general boating in calm, inland water, or where there is a good chance of a quick rescue.

• Type III PFDs: flotation aids are intended to support a conscious person in the water in an upright position and to be used for general boating or other specialized water activities on calm, inland water, with specialized shapes that support boating activities. As these devices may be cut smaller around the torso, with more room around the armpit, Type III devices must allow the wearer to maintain a related static balance without impeding breathing, should not turn the wearer face down while in an upright position, and must not ride up more than 6 inches above the shoulder while floating so that the device does not obstruct vision or breathing.

• Type IV PFDs: are intended to be thrown to and grasped by a person in the water and, in the context of UL 1123, include horseshoe buoys and ring buoys, with or without lifelines. These devices do not provide means for adjustment or close fitting to the body.

• Type V PFDs: special use life jackets are special-use devices, such as boardsailing vests, deck suits, commercial whitewater vests, overboard rescue devices, law enforcement flotation devices, and more.

You might be wondering how a standards testing organization — or a consumer, for that matter — could know whether a life jacket is indeed good enough to work quickly and sufficiently in an emergency or out-of-control situation, even when the user may not already be wearing it. The answer lies in the requirements of UL 1123: for a product to be certified to this Standard, it must pass a series of tests designed to demonstrate its likelihood to function to save a human from drowning if an incident occurs in or on the water. Many of these tests compare the performance of the candidate device, or the device being evaluated, with the performance of an equivalent reference vest, or standard USCG vest — Model AK-1 for Adult, Model CKM-1 for Youth, and Model CKS-2 for Child Small and Infant.

One such test is the donning test, which specifies that, when put on the body by the wearer, a PFD must be fully donned and ready to function as needed within 60 seconds. To perform the donning test, human test subjects of varying height and weight, the number of which is dependent upon the candidate device’s chest size adjustment range but must include at least one male and at least one female, are instructed to don the device as quickly as possible and adjust it to a snug fit while being timed.

Type II PFDs specifically, which are intended to be able to turn an unconscious person out of water, must comply with the requirements of the turning test to be certified to UL 1123. During the turning test, which mimics a boater losing consciousness either before they hit the water, as they hit the water due to impact with the surface, or after hitting the water, such as in cold water events, a test subject wearing the candidate device relaxes face down in the water, exhaling slowly, while the turning time is recorded. To comply with the test, the amount of time a Type II PFD takes to turn a face-down person must not exceed that of the reference vest by more than 2 seconds for youth and adult devices or more than 1 second for child and infant devices; furthermore, the total number of turns for the group of test subjects must not be less than the number of turns obtained by using the reference vest.

A third test required for compliance with UL 1123 which mimics real usage scenarios is the water entry test, which specifies that a PFD must remain securely in place and provide adequate support when a user jumps into the water with their arms extended above their head — an action that can cause the PFD to shift or rebound over the user’s head. To counter the risk of a child jumping into a pool and their PFD behaving in an unpredictable way, child devices are tested using child test subjects.

In addition to performance testing, UL 1123 also requires that PFDs are provided with specific markings labels, the contents of which include but are not limited to sizing information, appropriate performance level, and applicable warnings and limitations. Consumers are advised to look for U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) certification codes on PFD labels and to search for those codes and manufacturers on USCG’s certified equipment list.

Two labels that are required for UL 1123 certification are the selection and inspection labels. The selection label informs the user that they should select an appropriately sized jacket for the user and for the activity. It is crucial to fit a PFD to the person using it. For children’s devices, users should be within the device’s intended weight range ±1 lb (0.5 kg) and intended chest size range ±1 inch (25 mm). If a child’s weight or chest size is outside the intended ranges of the device they are wearing, the risk that the device will not work as intended increases significantly. Therefore, it is important to monitor that a child’s PFD is still appropriate for them as they grow. The inspection label reminds users to inspect their device before every use for indications of wear or damage that could reduce its functionality.

While UL 1123 has requirements that critically improve the safety of flotation devices that are available, as noted at the outset, such devices can only be effective if they are available and worn.  So, members of the public also need to be vigilant about using certified devices and following user instructions.

UL 1123 provides a blueprint for manufacturers, helping them test their designs for many potential threats to provide flexible safety for everyone on and near the water. As technologies and recreation change over time, the engineers of tomorrow will have the opportunity to design for safety by following safety standards like UL 1123 and to contribute to the development of UL 1123 as they invent ever-safer solutions to avoid drowning. With increased consumer education and consistent manufacturing certification, a future with fewer children drowning is possible thanks to certified PFDs.