So…you’re going out for your first night on the town after your baby is born. Lots of emotions vibrating through your body. Who do you leave your baby with? Is it a family member, a neighborhood teen, a good friend or an elderly woman who comes with recommendations…?

I guess the big question is - will it be a positive or negative experience for you, as a new parent?

A recent survey commissioned by iVillage.com found one out of four mothers questioned had a negative experience with a babysitter. Surprisingly, ten percent of the mothers reported mistreatment of their child by a babysitter.

Perhaps even more surprising to me is how willing many parents are to leave their child with someone who does not know how to deal with potentially life-threatening situations.

• A full one-third of mothers polled said they do not believe their babysitter knows how to help a child who is choking!
• Almost half of those polled do not believe the babysitter knows how to perform CPR.
• Over ten percent of mothers do not believe their babysitter can handle any medical emergency at all!!

With how fast we all know accidents happen and emergencies occur, these stats are shocking!

Babysitter training classes are available at local organizations such as American Heart Association and American Red Cross. Talking first aid devices such as SafetyMate for the New Parent can help teenagers or any caretakers refresh the information they learn in those classes in between annual trainings. www.safetymate.com/home/index.html

We all know if you don’t “use it,” you “lose it.” Unless you are a paramedic who is performing life-saving actions or CPR every day, there is no real way to become expert at dealing with crises.

Information is power. Learn, re-learn, practice, teach others…

As I noted in an earlier post, we have some exciting happenings!

After our debut on the TODAY show, it is now no secret that we are coming to market with a brand new solution to family first aid issues. SafetyMate for the New Parent is talking first aid for the home. The newest trend in essential safety gear for the modern mom and dad, SafetyMate allows parents the opportunity to refresh all the information they might have learned one time on-the-job or in an infant CPR class - at any time! Because SafetyMate is more interactive and engaging, with colored icons and blinking lights to guide the user, caretakers are much more likely to spend the time to refresh the information and to be prepared to deal with an emergency if the need arises.

Allison and I were recently at a trade show when a mother asked us how she was supposed to listen to the device over ”my own hysterical screaming.”

Interesting question.

My first thought was that in being afraid to even THINK about the issue that something might happen to your child is probably very normal and was, obviously for her, very anxiety provoking.

My own experience in being trained only once a year (while I was working in psychiatric hospitals) left me feeling vulnerable and afraid that I was supposed to know how to respond when actually I somehow felt LESS prepared than had I just remained totally ignorant. The diffusion of responsibility theory would absolutely be in play had I remained untrained.

However, now that I have been around this information and have listened to it numerous times, I have felt calm and totally capable of handling a situation. In fact, since I have been working with SafetyMate, I actually have responded on four separate occasions. In each case, I was able to not only remain calm myself, but have been able to keep others calm as well.

The point here is that preparedness does not increase anxiety, but allays it. The likelihood that a child is going to experience some emergency seems inescapable. The choice is to be prepared or to remain ignorant and perhaps when the time comes, to scream hysterically. Which would help your kid more?

CNN’s report on the tragic story of a five year-old kindergarten student in Marlborough, MA choking to death while on a bus ride to school was forwarded to me. 

The bus driver pulled over after being alerted of the emergency and called immediately for help. The child was reportedly choking on a foreign object. Since brain death begins to occur within four to six minutes of being deprived oxygen, EMS response time is critical. But really what is more critical is whether bus drivers, as the only adults present in this type of scenario, are trained in First Aid/CPR. School bus drivers across the nation are entrusted with the safety of our children.  Any adult who has the responsibility for caring for a child - be it for 20 minutes or for 6 hours - needs to be adequately trained in first aid/CPR and needs to be constantly refreshed on that information. Practice decreases panic. Accidents do happen. Adults need to be prepared to take care of the children in their care.

Anthony and I attended Super CPR Saturday this weekend. In a very non-scientific poll of the people who attended, the majority of attendees were there getting trained in CPR due to a work requirement. I think in the past the only times I’ve gotten trained were for work, as well. What is it about us that makes us not want to be prepared?

We hear about the need to “be prepared” all the time in ads, on tv, in the news…yet how many people out there in California actually have an earthquake preparedness kit? How many people planned for the never-occurring Y2K scare? How many people after Hurricane Katrina now have supplies to take them through another natural disaster?

I would be interested to hear from people why you do or do not take the steps to plan for emergency. Is there anyone out there who is totally prepared, well-stocked, and ready for an emergency to happen? How about the everyone else? Any comments / thoughts / philosophies on why or why you are not prepared?