“Recent growth in the number of grandparents providing child care has some observers concerned they don’t adhere to modern safety practices,” said lead study author Dr. David Bishai, a professor with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health “To the contrary, this research tells us not only is there no evidence to support this assumption, but families that choose grandparents to care for their children experience fewer child injuries.”

Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health analyzed caregiving and injury data from the National Evaluation of the Healthy Steps for Young Children Program. The program includes information about 5,500 newborns in 15 United States cities during 1996 and 1997, with follow-up over the next three years.

The analysis showed that having grandparents as caregivers cut the risk of childhood injury by about half. Compared to organized day care, care by other relatives, or even care by a mother who doesn’t work outside the home, children who were cared for by a grandmother were less likely to be injured. The findings were published in this month’s issue of Pediatrics.

I wonder if Grandma and Grandpa fared better in these studies because they have less children to take care than community day care centers or in home day care providers.

Their ratio would be 1:3(or less), as opposed to a 1:8 or more at a professional care facility…

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Bobby picked the numbers and Tonya bought the two $1 tickets just hours before the drawing.

Bobby used the birth dates of five of their six grandchildren to pick the winning numbers: 7, 12, 13, 19, 22.

Tonya says she’s still not sure what prompted Bobby to pick the all-important Mega Ball number of 10.

The couple’s last grandchild, Cody was born on December 30th, but instead of playing 30 he chose 10, which made the difference between winning the $270 million or $250,000.

The Harrises have two daughters who also live in Portal, and plan to take the winnings as a lump sum, which would leave them with $164 million before taxes.

What’s next?

Bobby says, “It is great to know I won’t have to go ask for a job or work for somebody else, that I can finally stay home and enjoy my grandkids.” Tonya added, “I hope everything will just stay normal. I really want the normal life. We’d just like to have a home and some land and things for the grandkids and to help our kids out and our family. But that’s as far as we want to go.

Related Articles: Refresher Courses For GrandparentsSOURCE

The refresher classes in modern parenting are being run in response to the growing burden being placed on grandparents by busy working parents.

About two thirds of families with babies and half of those with toddlers use grandparent care.

This makes it the most common form of childcare, especially for lone, younger and first-time mothers.

The courses have been started by community midwife Carol Murray.

She said: “I used to work in an ante-natal clinic so I was always doing classes for new mums and dads and occasionally I got the odd comment, ‘you should send my mum along’ so it was a wee idea that I thought about and thought about and eventually I was given the opportunity to be able to run the classes.”

“I always start the classes off saying I’m not here to tell them how to raise their grandchildren but just to bring them up to speed with what’s happening,” she said.

“A lot of the things we do are showing them how babies go down to sleep, prevention of cot death and how we wrap babies and lay them down, because that’s the biggest change over the last few years.”

She added: “Grannies had a tendency a few years ago to swaddle babies, wrap them up tightly in shawls and prop them up on their side and lots of blankets.

“We’ve found it’s safer if babies lie on their back with their feet at the bottom of the cot, and not too many layers depending on the temperature.”

I LOVE this idea! More communities should provide these classes. Grandparents want to provide good care for their grand babies, they just need to be brought up to speed on the changes that have occured in the last 10 -15 years.

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