Grandparent care keeps children safer

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Grandparent care rules.Not only are young children safer from injury in the care of grandma than anyplace else, but caring for the grandkids also doesn't seem to take any particular toll on her health, either.Several recent studies show that fears for the grandkids' safety with elders or worries that older adults can handle long stints with tots are unfounded.One report, published in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics, analyzed the experience of about 5,500 newborns and toddlers born in the late 90s.The study found that having grandparents as caregivers cut the risk of injury to the child by half, compared to organized day care, care from other relatives or even care from a stay-at-home mom.Estimates of how many grandparents are involved in childcare vary. The Census Bureau estimates that at least quarter to a third of grands regularly provide some care. Other surveys put the proportion at more than half."The recent growth in the number of grandparents providing childcare has some observers concerned they don't adhere to modern safety practices,'' said Dr. David Bishai, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the lead author of the study."But 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 injuries."The "choose" part may be a little open to interpretation. Other surveys show about 20 percent of parents who ask their parents to care for their kids pay money for the service, although not as much as they typically would other babysitters. And even those who don't get paid in cash may benefit indirectly by helping their own kids work and help the finances of the larger family.Surveys also show that while more than half of grandmas provide childcare, more than a third of grandfathers also spend some time minding the grandchildren.Some research done in the past has suggested that helping to raise a second generation takes a toll on senior health. One study published in 2003 found that grandmothers who provide child care for nine or more hours a week have higher rates of heart disease than those who provided no care, after taking into account other risk factors.But two recent studies, both using data from a long-running survey of the health habits of people between 50 and 80,including 13,000 grandparents, found that the impact on health was short-lived, if at all.Researchers at the University of Chicago and several other institutions, including Hopkins, did find that grandmothers who began caring for grandchildren whose parents were not present in the home (less than 3 percent of all grandparents) did have some negative health effects when they first started."But we find a small improvement in self-rated health for grandmothers who continue this kind of care,'' added Mary Elizabeth Hughes, a Hopkins professor who was lead author of the2007 report in the Journal of Gerontology: Social Science.And they found no negative health impacts for grandparents who were regularly babysitters, but not custodians of their grandkids.Likewise, researchers at the University of Southern California,Davis reported in the same journal that grandmothers in the first two years of raising a grandchild took less care of their health in terms of getting cholesterol screening, mammograms and Pap tests, than grandmas the same age not raising kids.But they found that after two years, the second-time-around moms were actually more likely than non-caregivers to seek preventive care and screening.Lindsay Baker, co-author of the study, which looked at more than 5,200 grandmothers, said at first grandmothers may be inclined to skimp on their own health care as the focus on the grandchildren.But once they come to realize that they're back to parenting for the long haul, "they're particularly motivated to maintain a healthy lifestyle, in order to be prepared to care for the child in the future. As grandmothers adapt to their new role, this motivation begins to outweigh constraints on service use,'' Baker said.On the Net: http://www.pediatrics.aappublications.org/www.Biomed/gerontologyjournals.orgE-mail Scripps Howard News Service medical writer Lee Bowman at bowmanl(at)shns.com.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)