Safe Sleep for Babies

Baby Sleep Day is March 1st. This day is about bringing attention to the importance of good sleep for the entire family’s overall health and wellbeing.

Baby Sleep Day recognizes how important it is to put an infant under 1 year old in a safe environment for sleeping to help prevent sleep related deaths.

Every year in the US, about 3400 babies die unexpectedly in their sleep or in the area where they sleep. SUID (Sudden Unexpected Infant Death), formerly known as SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), is the leading cause of death among babies between 1 month to 1 year of age, and mostly occurs when babies are between 1 to 4 months of age. In Vermont, 71 babies died from SUID between 2018-2022 according to the CDC Vital Statistics. Though Vermont has one of the lowest rates of SUID in the country, even one death from SUID is too many.

Rutland Regional Medical Center has been recognized by the National Safe Sleep Hospital Certification Program as a Certified Gold Standard Safe Sleep Hospital for its commitment to best practices and for providing family education on infant safe sleep. Through this program, the Women’s and Children’s Unit at RRMC provides our community with safe sleep education and resources to help reduce the risk of SUID in the communities we serve.

SUID has no obvious cause, but there are some things families can do to create a safe sleep environment for their infant:

• Place the baby on their back to sleep and always on a firm mattress covered by a fitted sheet.
• Keep the baby near parents while sleeping but in their own crib, no bed sharing.
• Do not put baby to sleep on a couch, chair, or an adult bed.
• Keep the crib free of objects such as stuffed animals, bumpers, and blankets.
• Do not use blankets, pillows, or baby positioners such as “boppies” to prop the baby in any way.
• Keep the environment smoke free.

Families and parents be sure to spread the word! By making sure everyone who cares for your baby knows how to reduce the risk of SUID, you will be helping to increase awareness and help more babies sleep better and safer.

RRMC Women’s and Children’s Nurses and Providers will be attending the upcoming Vermont Pregnancy Baby Expo taking place on Saturday, April 12 at the Rutland Recreation Community Center (info here: https://vtnaturallyyouchildbirth.com/expo/). Please stop by our booth and visit with us and pickup information and education on infant safe sleep. We will have other handouts as well and we will provide hands-on demonstrations on how to swaddle a baby for safe sleeping.

Working together we can all make sleeping safer for babies.

Written by the nurses from the Women’s and Children’s Unit and Birthing Center at Rutland Regional Medical Center