US sports star shares video of 8-month-old face down in water learning to flip over

Professional US volleyball player, Morgan Miller, has taken to Instagram to share videos of her eight-month-old son’s swimming lessons, nearly a year after her 18-month-old daughter died in a drowning accident.

Emeline Grier drowned after falling into a neighbour’s pool in 2018.

The mother revealed last month, she performed CPR on her daughter and managed to resuscitate her. However, the little girl died in hospital the next day due to severe brain damage.

Since Emeline’s death, Morgan has been an advocate for water and pool safety and says she aims to have zero child drowning pool deaths across the US – and having her son partake in swimming lessons every week day is a part of that.

In a series of Instagram stories, Morgan shows her eight-month-old son, Easton, in the pool with an instructor. The instructor manoeuvres Easton to be face down in the water, and watches as he paddles himself to be face up.

The exercise, although terrifying to watch, is aimed at teaching babies to float, rest and breathe until help arrives. It is proven to be a cognitive response to babies under the age of one, as they are generally immobile, and don’t have the capacity to panic and flail.

In the manoeuvre they turn to find oxygen and float until help comes. It is hoped that if babies learn this technique from a young age, they will be more comfortable as they get older and be able to continue this survival method in the water.

In April, Morgan shared other clips of Easton learning to swim.

“I cried tears of hope watching my baby boy learn this life-saving skill … and then tears of sadness because it was all I had to do to keep my baby girl here,” she heartbreakingly admitted in the caption of the post.

Easton was welcomed by the Millers just four months after Emeline tragically drowned.

Miller has previously opened up about her loss, vowing that her daughters legacy will continue to change the world.

“I wish I could have one more day to hold you, but until that day comes, continue to work through me and give me the strength to bring awareness, my love,” she wrote.

“I told you as I held you in this moment that you could still change the world, you could still move mountains.”