For students who find that visions of mashed carrots and diapers crowd their concentration, costly day-care facilities need not be their only means of reprieve.

Penn State Students for Life has started a babysitting service, available free of charge for any area parent, said Whitney Hoffacker, a group member and the service's organizer.

"It shows that we do care about the baby after it is born and the mother after she has the baby," Hoffacker (junior-mining engineering) said, countering criticism by pro-choice groups that the pro-life advocates' commitment to life ends at birth.

Dion Zappe (graduate-exercise and sport science), a group member and babysitter, agreed.

"To save babies, there's a lot of things to it," Zappe said. "You have to encourage the mother to go through with the pregnancy and also help them after."

Even though the group began babysitting at the start of the semester, the service has attracted only one customer so far, Hoffacker said. "We just don't have enough babies right now."

Hoffacker attributed this to a lack of publicity.

The group has advertised at the Crisis Pregnancy Center, 114 S. Fraser St., and Birthright, 111 Sowers St., he added. Both centers offer free pregnancy testing and options counseling.

The group recruits babysitters primarily from its membership ranks. The babysitters can either travel to parents' homes or take children into their homes -- "whatever works out best," Hoffacker said.

Chandra Lilley, vice president of Penn State Pro-Choice, expressed support for the new service.

"We were very pleased to see them do this," Lilley said. "It's one of the few positive things we've ever seen them do for women facing these circumstances."

Lilley said several of her group's members expressed interest in volunteering to help babysit.

A survey conducted by the Returning Adult Student Center last spring found that 38 percent of the more than 2,600 undergraduates aged 24 or older at University Park have children, said Charlene Harrison, the center's director.

Fifteen percent of the University's more than 7,000 graduate students have children, Harrison added.

Harrison did not have figures for students who did not fit into the returning adult or graduate student categories.