Babysitting grandchildren can be beneficial to health.

You are a grandparent.

Perhaps you have recently joined thees esteemed ranks after the recent birth of your first grand baby.

Maybe you have been a grandparent for years.

Either way, you know the joy of this role.

Nevertheless, there seems to be a beneficial role to this joy.

Think about that one for a moment, then read on.

According to a recent Considerable article titled “Grandparents who babysit a grandchild live longer, study finds,” there also may be health benefits to spending time with your grandchildren.

By babysitting grandchildren you could improve your life expectancy.

Considerable interviewed Dr. David Coall about the proposed benefits of babysitting grandchildren.

Who is Dr. David Coall?

He is a senior lecturer at Edith Cowan University and co-authorized a 2017 study correlating delayed mortality and increased grandparent caregiving.

This study analyzed data gathered in the Berlin Aging Study (BASE).

The Berlin Aging Study took more than 500 participants in Germany.

These participants were monitored for social and health conditions between 1990 and 2009.

Dr. Coall focused on studying grandparents who provide periodic babysitting rather than those who provided primary caregiving for their grandchildren.

What did they find?

Those participants can who reported babysitting grandchildren had a 37 percent lower risk of death than those grandparents who were not caregivers.

There was also a 37 percent lower risk for those babysitting grandchildren than those who were not grandparents.

Yikes!

Is this simply because healthier grandparents are more likely to babysit grandchildren?

Dr. Coall analyzed the Berlin Aging Study data to find an answer.

He determined that health accounted for only 22 percent of the connection between babysitting and longevity of life.

The study correlates babysitting grandchildren to improved health physically rather than emotionally or mentally.

Other studies have attempted to study the connection between babysitting and health.

Of these, the results are mixed.

The impact of babysitting grandchildren and health requires further study.

Even so, spending time with your grandchildren during retirement can foster lasting bonds.

As the first grandchild of my generation on both paternal and maternal sides of the family, I can confirm that my relationships with my own grandparents have been a lifelong blessing to me.

And the bonds formed between generations lasts for eternity.

Reference: Considerable (June 23, 2020) “Grandparents who babysit a grandchild live longer, study finds”