Special Wetsuit For Children With Limited Mobility

A special hi-tech wetsuit designed for children with limited mobility is helping kids with cerebral palsy like 13-year-old Nicholas McDougall to make a splash.

Nicholas loves to swim but finds swimming pools too cold, particularly because his body has trouble generating and retaining heat. “Anything but heated water bothers him. It causes his muscles to contract and causes him a lot of pain,” said his father, Joe McDougall.

Like many children with cerebral palsy, Nicholas suffers from limited mobility. Brittle bones, flaccid muscles and similar problems make it difficult, if not altogether impossible, for children with disabilities to wriggle into a traditional wetsuit.

Designed by Louise Kublick, an aquatics coordinator at a Canadian rehabilitation center, the two-piece wetsuit unzips to lie flat on the floor, making it easier for a child with limited mobility to be zipped into it.

“The big thing is how he gets into it. A normal wetsuit you would have to push and pull on his arms and hurt him,” said Nicholas' father. “He loves the water and it gives him a sense of independence because he isn't just in his wheelchair or lying on the couch.”

“Water is fabulous for its physical benefits. Kids with disabilities who don't learn to swim are left out of those physical opportunities and that social opportunity,” said Kublick.

Contact a cerebral palsy lawyer to find out if your child is entitled to compensation to help cover the cost of cerebral palsy therapy.