Emergencies happen—are you prepared?

What if you had to save your grandchild in an emergency?

​Last spring, on a quiet weekend afternoon, my son and daughter-in-law heard a frantic knocking on their front door. When my daughter-in-law opened the door, it wasn’t a neighborhood child wanting to play, the way she expected. It was a distraught neighbor.
“There’s a baby! She’s not breathing!”

A young mother had come to the neighborhood to buy something she’d seen on Craig’s list. Her infant was in a car seat in the back of the car, and had apparently spit up and aspirated some of it. When she discovered the baby wasn’t breathing, she panicked. The neighbor, knowing my son had medical training, raced to his house. While my daughter-in-law called 911, my son rushed across the street. He was able to clear her airway and she quickly started breathing normally. He says he spent more time helping the mother calm down from the full state of panic she’d entered than he did helping the baby. By the time the paramedics arrived, everyone was okay. (They did take the baby to the hospital to make sure she didn’t need further care.)

How lucky for that baby that the neighbor knew there was someone nearby who could help! And that my son happened to be home! Emergencies don’t always turn out so well. How much better it would have been if her mother had known the steps to take to help her child.

As grandparents, keeping our grandchildren safe should be one of our highest priorities. Are we really prepared for emergencies? Because if we aren’t prepared, we have to rely on luck to ensure a happy ending. And luck is notoriously unreliable.

Will you join me in pledging to get prepared?

Last week, Gail Gould, the CPR and Safety Lady, shared some important tips on keeping our grandchildren safe. Let’s re-read them and create a plan to follow them.

Instead of buying the baby another outfit, let’s spend the time and money on an infant/child CPR class.

Instead of researching fun activities to entertain our grandchildren, let’s learn the proper way to install the car seats in our vehicles.

Instead of assuming our house is safe, let’s educate ourselves on the dangers it may hold and eliminate them.

Let’s teach them to swim, watch them like hawks, and learn the difference between choking and gagging.

On Thursday, July 15 at 3pm Central Time, Gail will be joining me on Instagram Live to do a short demo on infant/child CPR and choking relief. Will you pledge to join us? It’s 15 minutes that could save your grandchild’s life.

If you can’t make it while we are live, it will be saved on my Instagram account under the little TV icon, so you can come watch it later!

I’m working on updating the Baby Care and Safety section of our comprehensive resource, New Grandparents 101, which is undergoing some other exciting changes! Sign up now to find out when it's ready for you!