Are you putting your child to sleep the correct way?
For babies, the way they sleep can be a matter of life and death.
In 2016, 57 infants died of sleep-related causes in Virginia. Thirty-two of those deaths happened in Eastern Virginia, said Dr. C.W. Gowen, a neonatologist for the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters.
In an effort to teach parents safe sleep habits for babies and reduce the number of sleep-related infant deaths, Minus 9 to 5 brought 22 organizations together to align under the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) of South Hampton Roads “Sleep Tight Hampton Roads” program on March 15.
Their mission? To provide cribs and home-visitation programs to low-income families and teach parents about promoting the safe-sleep ABCs:
- Always alone
- Always on their backs
- And always in their cribs
“A collective impact project is the most efficient way to get things done in the community,” said CHIP CEO Trish O’Brien.
Bad habits, like letting a baby sleep on the sofa, in their parents’ bed, and on their stomach or side, can lead to sleep-related death, including sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) Gowen said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 3,000 infants die each year from sleep-related causes in the U.S.
O’Brien said that sometimes infant deaths happen because families don’t have access to important tools and resources, including cribs. CHIP has donated more than 1,000 cribs to Hampton Roads families.
“With help from individual donors, the faith-based community, foundations, corporations, and the United Way, CHIP was able to provide safe sleeping options and most importantly, parental education,” said Lori Galbraith, the chair of the board of CHIP Hampton Roads and chief deputy commonwealth’s attorney in Chesapeake.
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O’Brien believes that 75 percent of infant sleep deaths that occurred in Eastern Virginia would have been preventable if those families had received the correct information and resources to safely put the children to sleep.
“There is just not enough clear communication or there is conflicting information about infant care and sleep,” she said.
CDC research from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System reported that in 2012, 90 percent of mothers in Virginia said that they discussed the correct way to put their babies to sleep with a healthcare professional. Eighty percent of mothers reported that they always placed their infants to sleep on their backs.
Still, researchers found that 63 percent of parents admitted to having shared a bed with a sleeping baby.
The “Sleep Tight Hampton Roads” campaign aims to reinforce good practices and correct misinformation.
The campaign has created an informational packet for parents that shows how to put a child to bed safely. The book also reinforces the ABCs of safe sleep.
“There are organizations in hospitals that do teach mothers the correct way to put your child to sleep,” said Dr. Cynthia Romero, director of the M. Foscue Brock Institute for Community and Global Health at Eastern Virginia Medical School. “There is just this overwhelming amount of information given to an expecting mother around the time she is due and sometimes that information is lost or forgotten.”
Gowen believes that with the launch of the campaign, the ABCs can reduce the infant- mortality rate by 75 percent in the Eastern Virginia area.
“It is heartbreaking to have a case come across my desk or an autopsy of a child death,” said Galbraith. “If we have saved just one life by providing these cribs and parental education, that task was monumental.”
Other recommendations for keeping your child safe while sleeping include:
- Swaddling your child
- Laying your baby on a firm, flat mattress and in a crib
- Sleeping in the same room as your infant
- Keeping the crib completely empty
This story was published in partnership with our sister publication, Southside Daily.
