After controlling for sociodemographic and parenting variables, infants who spent one to eight or nine to 20 hours with relatives were nearly half as likely to have ongoing problems with diarrhoea, colitis or other infections compared to children who attended other types of care (ORadj=0.59; 95% CI 0.35???0.98 and ORadj=0.47; 95% CI 0.25???0.89; unadjusted 5.0 per cent and 4.6 per cent versus 8.2