Word: childing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Ballard's job - when she can get in the house - is to try to give low-income parents a leg up. She teaches them many of the same child-rearing techniques that give the children of middle-class and educated parents an edge socially and in school - and that instruction is often eye-opening for both Ballard and her clients. You would be surprised to know what new parents don't know, Ballard says, recalling the case of one father who thought babies couldn't hear at birth. He asked, "When do their eyes open?' He thought they were like...
...developed in the 1970s by David Olds, a professor of pediatrics and preventive medicine at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. NFP involves about 64 home visits from a nurse during the first 2½ years of a child's life. Many of the new mothers who receive the benefit are single, are on welfare, have low education levels and are dealing with addiction, mental illness and family violence. Nurses visit once a week during pregnancy and early infancy, answering health questions, teaching basic parenting skills and, crucially, helping moms whose own early lives were often characterized by chaos...
...study, also in J.A.M.A., found that nurse home visits were associated with a nearly 50% drop in rates of substantiated child abuse or neglect in new families and that visits increased the amount of time between a mother's first and second pregnancies. Rates of hypertension, which is known to interfere with fetal brain development, were also reduced. And mothers spent less time on welfare and worked more...
...What happens early has a long-term impact, says Olds. Indeed, about 90% of a child's brain growth takes place before kindergarten, so it's critical to teach new parents what to expect as a child develops not only during pregnancy and early childhood but also as the child matures. A large part of nurse home visits are designed to teach parents how to respond to their children as they age and help them manage the extra burden of parenting with few resources. Says Olds: "Learning to understand children's motivations and abilities helps parents treat them more sensitively...
...also creates a less stressful environment and protects against child abuse and neglect, and those reductions can in turn cut children's risks of later engaging in crime and suffering from addiction, mental illness, obesity and cardiovascular disease. The key, according to Olds' research, begins with properly trained nurses; home visits by paraprofessionals aren't as effective. Despite the current shortage of nurses in the U.S., Olds says his program is ready to grow. "The NFP is shovelready for substantial expansion, as long as we recognize that serving 500,000 new families per year will take time...