Providers & Community Partners

Why Should Healthcare Providers Focus on Safe Sleep?

You play an important role in helping parents and caregivers keep their babies healthy and safe. In Louisiana, about 90 infants die of Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID) and suffocation every year (Louisiana Child Death Review Report, 2024). Sudden Unexpected Infant Death includes infant deaths (under age one) from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), accidental strangulation in bed, and other deaths from unknown causes. You can help reduce the risk of Sudden Unexpected Infant Death, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and suffocation by teaching safe sleep practices to parents, grandparents, and other caregivers.

How to Promote Safe Sleep

Clinicians, community leaders, child care providers, and the media all have a part to play in promoting safe sleep. Here’s how to help:

• Know and share the steps to safe sleep with everyone who cares for and about babies.
• Teach and encourage safe sleep at your practice, your workplace, your church, or wherever you reach people, using these questions.
• Share this child care center checklist with your patients and encourage them to ask child care centers about their safe sleep policy.
• You can even set up a safe sleep display in your workplace using these instructions.
• Model safe sleep by removing items from a crib or Pack ‘n Play, placing baby on his or her back, and using a sleep sack.
• Download our free media materials to spread the word.
• Have questions? Want to do even more? Your local maternal and child health coordinator can help. Find out who to call here.

For Child Care Providers

All child care providers, those working at centers as well as those providing child care in their homes, should have a written safe sleep policy document. It is recommended that this policy incorporate the safe sleep guidelines based on recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Important Actions for Child Care Providers:

• Create a written safe sleep policy. If you are not sure of how to create a safe sleep policy, contact a child care health consultant or click here for help creating a policy that fits your child care center or home.
• Make sure all cribs are in good repair and meet the accredited safety standards of the Juvenile Product Manufacturing Association.
• One baby at a time per crib.
• Do not use wedges or infant positioners that do not meet federal safety standards outlined by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
• Have supervised “tummy time” for babies who are awake. This will help babies strengthen their muscles and develop normally.
• Make sure you teach ALL staff, substitutes, and volunteers about safe sleep policies and practices. Be sure to review them with your team OFTEN. If a baby is under doctor’s orders to sleep on their side or stomach, notify ALL staff and place a sign on the crib.
• When a new baby is coming into the program, talk to the parents about your safe sleep policy and find out how their baby sleeps. If the baby sleeps in a way other than on their back, the child’s parents or guardians need a note from the child’s physician that explains how they should sleep, the medical reason for this position, and a time frame for this position. This note should be kept on file, and all staff, including substitutes and volunteers, should be informed of this special sleep situation. It is required by the Department of Education to put a sign on the baby’s crib.

Resources for Childcare Providers

Talking About Safe Sleep

All families need to know how to create the safest sleep environment for their baby in any situation. The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine and other experts recommend that providers have open and nonjudgmental conversations with families about how they put their baby to sleep. Click here for tips and trainings on how to talk to caregivers about safe sleep.

Behind every Sudden Unexpected Infant Death statistic is a family forever changed. Watch this video to see how parents in Louisiana are sharing their stories to raise awareness so all babies can sleep safely.

Hear more stories about infant safe sleep here.

LEARN THE STEPS TO SAFE SLEEP

Visit this webpage to learn all the steps to keep babies safe while they sleep!