If you’ve a young family and you’re installing a pool at home, you’ll need to make sure you add a fence to keep it safe. According to the Centers for Disease Control, drowning is the number one cause of unintentional deaths in children aged 1 to 4, with around 390 deaths by drowning in a swimming pool every year.

But the difference between a three-sided fence and a four-sided fence is huge – making sure your pool is fully surrounded reduces the risk of drowning by around 80%. So it just shows why you must have a full fence if you’re adding a pool at home. And if you choose glass pool fencing, there are a number of benefits specific to families that you’ll enjoy.

Self-latching gates

Even with the best intentions, it is easy to accidentally leave a pool gate open or unlocked, rendering your fence irrelevant if your children know where the gate is. A four-sided fence does nothing if the gate is open for your child to exploit. Yet choose a modern glass pool fence and you can enjoy gates that automatically close and latch, so you never need to worry about forgetting to shut it again. It leaves you free to relax, and means your fence can do the job it was intended for.

Climb-resistant panels

A fence is no good if it’s easy for adventurous children to climb. This is one of the more common issues with wooden fences, and occasionally metal railings. Yet glass panels are designed to be resistant to climbing – their smooth surfaces offer nowhere to grip, and their edgeless design offers no way through. Your glass fence will keep the pool off limits, no matter how hard the little ones try.

No edges to get stuck in

And try they will – it might be the hardest pool fence to climb, but that won’t stop braver children from having a go. And this can sometimes, with other material fences, cause children to injure themselves – edges and joints are the perfect place for skin to get caught or fingers to get jammed, particularly damaging if the climbing child falls. Glass panels don’t have these, so even when the child does try (and fail) to scale them, they’re less likely to be hurt.

Clear view to monitor children

Ultimately, you’re going to let your children enjoy your pool, as long as they are being supervised. And no fence offers a clearer view of your family in the pool than a glass one. If you need to be outside the fence, and you’ve left younger members of the family in the waters, it’s much easier to see them and ensure they’re safe with the unobstructed views of transparent glass panels.

These are just some of the reasons why you should consider glass pool fencing when you’re installing a pool at home and you want to keep the children safe.