THESE water babies just love swimming - and your youngster could join them as classes set up a year ago expand to more towns in Gwent.

A year after Langstone woman Jacqui Grant and business partner Aletia Griffiths, from Rogerstone, started Water Babies classes at Newport's Maes Ebbw School and Maindee pools, they are expanding to pools in Chepstow, Monmouth and Blackwood and they are looking for more sites in Newport.

The women met at aqua natal classes while pregnant, then trained as swimming teachers during maternity leave having come across the Water Babies organisation in Bristol.

Parents take their youngsters from birth to classes to get them comfortable with swimming underwater.

The idea of babies being able to swim independently under water was established in the 1960s, when Igor Tjarkovsky, a Russian swimming instructor, saved his daughter's life by raising her in a warm water tank after she was born more than two months prematurely.

The parent acts as the child's temporary support rather than using armbands, allowing babies to swim short distances long before the have the co-ordination to swim above the water. Water Babies says it prevents youngsters from developing a fear of water while bonding with their parent.

More than 500 babies have learned to swim in the South Wales classes in the past year, and there are currently 320 attending classes.

Ms Grant says: "Sometimes we hear sharp intakes of breath from the side of the pool and we know someone is just itching to shout out to 'rescue that tiny child'."

Although there's no need, Ms Grant adds: "Although babies rarely appear to be doing any more than having fun, they are actually learning potential lifesaving skills. Drowning is still the third largest cause of accidental death for children in the United Kingdom."

Alex Price-Stephens will be two in March.

The family live on Carey Road in Newport. He has been going to water babies for more than a year and his mother Katie Henson, 28, says he loves it. "He has come on really well," she said.

"He swims underwater and should soon be swimming above. It is brilliant for him."

New classes begin soon at Monmouth leisure centre, Cefn Fforest leisure centre and the pool at St John's on the Hill School, Chepstow.

"But after Maindee closed we are looking for new sites in the city," Ms Grant says.

For more details call Ms Grant on 01633 895850 or log on to www.waterbabies.co.uk