A mom in Colorado who posted a video of her eight-month-old son being tossed in a pool during an ‘infant survival’ class sparked a debate online if it was safe to hurl a baby this young into water.

Krysta Meyer, 27, took to her TikTok account over the weekend to share the video and since then, it racked up more than 51 million views on the platform and about 20 million on Twitter, Buzzfeed News reported.

In the clip, her young son Oliver appears to be dropped into a pool by a swimming instructor, who then slides into the water and looks on as the boy struggles it back to the surface as he begins to sink. He floats on his back for a few seconds before the instructor inches closer to him, clasps on to the boy, and lifts him. The mother is overheard cheering for the baby, "whoo Oliver," while applauding the entire time.

"Oliver amazes me every week! I can't believe he is barely two months in and is catching on so fast. He is a little fish," Meyer wrote in the caption.

Meyer’s intention was to show the world how her baby was progressing in terms of his swimming skills but ended up receiving sharp criticism, and even death threats. Over 100,000 people commented on the footage, a number of them showing concerns about the child.

Twitter users lambasted the mother and expressed their concerns. One person said in a tweet, "Throw my baby in like that and I’ll drown u." Another said, "That is disgusting."

"Just like spanking this is abusive too," someone else wrote. "So stop making excuses for cruelty against babies."

"Excuse me but what the f**k?" tweeted another person.

Meyer, however, defended her TikTok video as she believes this would help her boys hone a skill that could prevent them from drowning.

"I've gotten death threats. I've had people tell me I'm the worst kind of mom, that I'm endangering my children, that I'm traumatizing them," BuzzFeed quoted Meyer, as saying.

The controversial clip was taken at the Little Fins Swim School where Meyer said she takes her two boys for swimming lessons. "A lot of people are seeing a kid being thrown into the water and thinking, That's not good! You shouldn't be doing that!" Meyer told Buzzfeed. "I've gotten death threats. I've had people tell me I'm the worst kind of mom, that I'm endangering my children, that I'm traumatizing them."

Meyer wanted people to know that the so-called ‘infant survival class’ was far different from average swimming classes in light of the strict safety measures being taken.

"The whole premise behind what we do is safety," Little Fins co-owner Lauri Armstrong told Buzzfeed. "We teach 8-month-olds to assess their situation and find an exit strategy [in water]. I know it seems crazy."

According to Buzzfeed, ever since Armstrong’s swimming school opened 7 years back, she had her instructors train for months to be able to handle specialized classes designed for children as young as 6-month-old. The program teaches infants to get comfortable with water, flip over and float as a method of survival in case they fall in.

Swimming Pool
Water in a swimming pool. Pixabay
RELATED STORIES
Twitter