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Child Care News for Parents & Carers
September 17, 2014
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The Productivity Commission's recommendations for au pairs and in-home care has sparked much debate within the industry. But what do you, the parents think? Read our article and take our mini poll. Recent research has highlighted the importance of nutrition during pregnancy and in the first three years of life. We look at the new Early Nutrition Guidelines that highlight importance of getting healthy and trimming down before pregnancy. |
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| Productivity Commission divides industry
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But what is best for working parents?
The Productivity Commission's draft report published in July looked at the issues facing many parents whose lives and working hours don't conform to standard child care hours or "approved" child care services. It also discussed how to address the chronic shortfall of child care places in many areas and how to improve women's workforce participation.
Two of the recommendations made were that overseas Au Pairs should be allowed to stay with one family for the full 12 month working holiday visa (opposed to the current six month maximum period with any one family) and that there should be an extension of child-based government assistance to enable greater access to home-based care services. This is in order to improve accessibility for the growing number of families with parents who work irregular or non-standard hours.
The report also argued that the government should allow approved nannies to become an eligible service, for which families can receive assistance, conditional on those nannies meeting the same National Quality Standards, care ratios and qualifications that currently apply to family day care services.
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Urge parents to trim down before pregnancy
According to an article published recently on news.com.au, men and women are being urged to trim down even before they conceive a child under new Early Life Nutrition guidelines.
The Early Life Nutrition guidelines are a plan developed by six Australian and New Zealand experts. The guidelines are designed to prevent childhood obesity and allergies, which are also increasing in young children.
The experts claim the right diet in the first 1,000 days of pregnancy (including 3 months before conception and the first three years of a child's life) have a profound impact on the child's health.
These echoes a report earlier in the year by Obesity Australia, that said that pregnant women who are overweight and feed their children a high carbohydrate, high sugar diet in the first three years of life are the cause of increasing obesity rates.
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