According to the National Institutes of Health, child emergencies are far more likely to occur during the first year of life often due to lack of information. In many cases, emergencies can be prevented. And if your baby is cronically crying at 2 a.m., how are you going to prevent your baby’s symptoms from getting worse?

What if your baby has a rash, fever, or cough? Do you ever need answers during the holidays and your only option is to go to the hospital? The average wait time in an emergency room is 3.3 hours and 55% of visits are unnecessary. You need immediate and accurate advice that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

My Bear Cub is a service provider for parents of newborn babies, toddlers, and disabled children. My Bear Cub, a division of Instant Care, provides medical answers instantly with a 24-hour nurse help line and 24-hour emergency response service. With a low monthly service fee, you are provided a 2-button remote and console system. The remote has a button for medical questions and medical emergencies.

So how does the console work?

There are two buttons on the console and remote. Wear the remote around your wrist or neck as it works outside your home. If you have a medical question, press the white nurse button. You are immediately connected to Bear Cub’s 24-hour nurse line center through the console. Bear Cub’s Specialist will begin answering your medical questions or assessing your medical needs.

If your need is an emergency, touch the red emergency button. Your emergency response system is activated and much faster than a 911 call. Bear Cub’s specialist will talk to you through the console to assess the situation and take appropriate actions. If you have an emergency or you are unable to respond, Emergency Medical Teams are dispatched immediately to your home. Bear Cub’s Specialists will stay on the line until help arrives. Your loved ones and others you choose will be immediately contacted.

Just as OnStar provides you with an in-vehicle safety and security system to protect you and your family on the road, Bear Cub provides you with 24-hour access at home or on the road. As an added feature to your monthly service fee, you can call a nurse from your cellular phone for advice. Think of it as OnStar for babies.

You get twice the care with My Bear Cub.

This young man was receiving 100+ emails per day from a web development mailing list. He had never subscribed to this list nor was he able to unsubscribe after multiple attempts. It was not your normal spam as the messages had no intent to sell a product or service. The bully had targeted my client’s email account knowing that my client’s email account lacked a proper spam filter. The intent of the spam email was meant to choke off my client’s supply of sales leads for his business by overwhelming his inbox with emails that looked legitimate, forcing my client to view each email individually before determining if he should keep or erase the message.

He contacted the list moderator for the web development website who told my client to check the source of the email by clicking on “show original.” The source email was a Gmail address and the cyber bully who was spamming my client was using a Gmail account as his “ghost account” to permanently forward to my client’s email account. He contacted the list moderator to remove the ghost email address from the list, but oddly, the moderator ignored his request.

Since my client was not the owner of the Gmail address, he had no way to unsubscribe from the list. He reported the harassment to Google online but Google responded with a computer generated email response that they would investigate. He could not find a phone number for Google that was answered by a live human being. Months continued to go by without any solution from the List Moderator or Google.

I suggested to my friend that he end his troubles in two simple steps. First, look up the owner of the domain using Network Solutions. Once at Network Solutions, click on WHOIS Search under Resources. In the “Enter a search term” box, type the complete domain address. It will list website owner’s name, an address, phone number, fax number, and email address.

Second, since my client was a member of Pre-Paid Legal Services, he was entitled to a free letter from his provider law firm. His provider law firm wrote a cease and desist letter then mailed, faxed, and emailed the letter to the adminstrative contact of the list. Upon receiving the letter, the adminstrator immediately deleted the Gmail address from the list and the young man’s harassment stopped as quickly as you can say free.

Deborah Bravandt is a business owner and independent associate with Pre-Paid Legal Services in San Diego. To get or sell Pre-Paid Legal Services, check it out at www.bravandt.com.

For those adult children who are caring for their ailing parents, there are legal options available to avoid the pitfalls of depleting your own retirement. For example, one family in Kansas City created a legal care contract to avoid putting their mother in a nursing home. According to Paula Span, the daughter was a nurse at a local hospital and was willing to bare the responsibility for her mother’s care as long as she did not lose income substantially. The daughter scaled back her work schedule and agreed to help her mother a certain number of hours each week attending to particular duties. In exchange, the mother paid her daughter the same hourly wage the daughter would have earned at the hospital.

The family hired an attorney who specialized in Elder Law to draw up a care contract. The contract specified the hours, schedule, specific duties, and pay so that all family members would feel they were dealt with fairly.

Interest in Elder Law has picked up since 2006 due to the tightening of Medicaid eligibility requirements. Without a caregiving contract, parents must sell their assets and give away cash to family members in order to qualify for Medicaid-paid nursing home care. With a caregiving contract, however, elders can show that they are paying for services rendered and still retain their assets. According to Richard Kaplan, a University of Illinois law professor who has studied care contracts, “Money can be transferred to younger relatives without triggering a penalty.”

Caregiver contracts also provide clarification so that no misunderstandings occur between siblings. Without a caregiver contract, a sibling might see the parent treating the children unequally, which could lead to bitter family disputes. With a caregiver contract, it is necessary to get all siblings involved with the specifics so that everyone feels the solution is fair.

If you need help with your own Caregiver contract, consider paying a monthly fee to have access to attornies who deal in Elder Law. The monthly fee includes free consultations per topic, free letters per topic, a free will, and a variety of other services. Check out the rates here.