In-Home Daycare May Be Hazardous to Your Child's Health

Teri Brown reported that in 1997 about 31,000 children under the age of four were seen in emergency rooms because of injuries sustained in a childcare setting. In 2000, the American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that 20% of deaths attributed to SIDS happened to children while in daycare. Online accounts of children dying while temporarily neglected or forgotten in a home daycare setting are legion, and even on-air accounts are found posted.

On 01-22-08 the National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies released an exhaustive study that concluded what many parents have already known: in home daycare is an iffy proposition, and while many a gem may be found, by and large some states do not have regulations protecting the children in those care settings.

In home childcare is of course a small business many a mom considers when her own children arrive. The wish to stay home with the little one and at the same time continue to pay the rent, put food on the table, and perhaps also diapers on the baby's bottom appear mutually exclusive, but with an entrepreneurial spirit, a home daycare will provide the best of both worlds. Since daycare providers are supposed to be state licensed, many parents do not think twice about leaving their children in the care of home daycares, and all would be well, had it not been for the startling revelations made by the organization.

Finding that in the in-home daycare setting unsafe cribs are present in eight percent of locales while for profit daycare centers evidence zero is indeed a blow to those believing junior to be safe. In the same way, soft bedding - a no-no for SIDS prevention - is found at eight percent of in-home settings as well. Add to this the fact that 46% have unsafe playground surfaces and 33% poorly maintained playground equipment, the idea that 21% do not use safety gates appears negligible. Last but not least, there are the mentioned blind cord loops which are present in 26% of in home daycares. (Section 3:147 of the NACCRRA report)

The conclusion is sobering: those living in Oklahoma, Washington State, Massachusetts, Alabama, the District of Columbia, Maryland, South Carolina, Colorado, and Connecticut are ahead of the game and may drop off their children with a bit more security in their minds. On the other side of the coin are parents relying on daycare in Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, and West Virginia, where even the most rudimentary state safety precautions are either missing or simply not enforced.

The recommendations to increase the quality of care with respect to in-home daycare settings are simple: provider education and training are suggested, as well as detailed background checks, including finger prints, that date back at least five years. Education particularly is a sore spot in that by and large it was considered that personal child rearing experience was sufficient. Yet in Section 3:153 of the NACCRRA report it is suggested that in many cases personal experience is a liability with respect to quality of care, not an asset.

Yet who will be the driving force behind implementation of these changes? An overworked bureaucracy that is already not able to fulfill the oversight stipulations in place? Parents who can literally not afford to alienate a childcare provider for fear of losing a monetarily affordable childcare solution?