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

Some States' Regulations Fail to Protect Children in at Home Daycare Settings

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)