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Walgreens Wellness Tour Comes to VirginiaGRANDPARENTS CAN MAKE SURE GRANDCHILDREN HAVE HEALTHY START
GRANDPARENTS CAN MAKE SURE GRANDCHILDREN HAVE HEALTHY START
NORFOLK
_ Area grandparents have a new way to be involved and help
their grandchildren be healthy with a new project from AARP Virginia.
AARP Virginia State Director Bill Kallio
spoke to grandparents as part of the Norfolk Public Library’s
Meet, Learn and Discover Series on Wednesday, September
16. Kallio shared information about AARP’s Grandmothers
Campaign for Healthy Grandchildren.
“Grandparents play a vital role in
families, and can be an important resource for young parents seeking
information about infant health,” Kallio said. “The
person with the strongest emotional influence on the new mother is the
child’s grandmother.”
AARP Virginia hosts a Norfolk online
community that meets in person once a month at the library. To
join the online community, visit www.aarp.org/norfolk
.
AARP Virginia launched the Grandmothers
Campaign earlier this month as an effort to make sure children get off
to a healthy start. The Grandmothers Campaign is a call to action
for all grandmothers to help reduce infant mortality and make sure
their grandchildren thrive during the first years of life. AARP
developed the project in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Health.
Each month about 75,000 Americans age
45-69 become grandparents and 80 million people will have
grandchildren by 2010. The average age of becoming a
grandparent is 50 years for women. Those women can help enhance
their grandchildren’s health by being a resource for their
daughters during pregnancy and during the first years of their
grandchildren’s lives.
The goal of the Grandmothers Campaign is
to cut Virginia’s infant mortality rate, currently the
30th highest in the nation. Grandmothers and others
interested in helping can spread the word through faith organizations,
civic organizations and other community groups. Those who join
the campaign will:
- receive the latest information about women’s health, prenatal care and safe sleep,
- have tools needed to engage young women in important family conversations, and
- be connected to a statewide network of grandmothers who share experiences, learn about infant health and get answers to important health questions.
The Grandmothers Campaign uses the
Internet with an online community where participates can network with
other grandmothers across the commonwealth. To find out more
about the Grandmothers Campaign and sign up for the online community
visit www.aarp.org/va
. The website includes “conversation starters”
– printed documents with information on important health topics
that grandmothers can share with their daughters.
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Added: Sep 17, 2009
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