SAFE SLEEP ACADEMY

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What is Safe Sleep?

Putting baby to sleep in ways that can help protect him/her from dangers, such as choking, suffocation, and sudden infant death syndrome (SUID).

What is Unsafe Sleep?

Anything in the caretaker’s control that could increase an infant’s risk of sleep-related death.

This could be due to a number of factors, sleeping position, sleeping surface, sleeping environment, cultural customs and belief, simply not knowing safe sleep practices and the recommendations.

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Sudden Unexpected Infant Death

What is it?

Sudden unexpected infant death is a sudden and unexpected death of a baby aged younger than 1 year. For these deaths, there is no obvious cause and often happen during sleep or in the baby’s sleep area.

Sudden unexpected infant deaths include:

Sudden infant death syndrome.
Accidental suffocation in a sleeping environment.
Other deaths from unknown causes

Although SUID is not always due unsafe sleep, it can include factors such as sleeping position, sleeping surface, and sleeping environment.

What are the risk factors?

Age: SUID is most common for babies between 1 and 4 months. But it can happen at any time during the first year of life.

Time of year: Infants born around the colder months are at a disadvantage because as parents, we want to ensure our babies are comfortable when they’re sleeping – it’s just our natural instinct. So, during the winter, when the temperature is lower, babies are more likely to have blankets in their sleeping environment, which is a red flag for safe sleep practices.

Health Status: Premature babies are at a higher risk due to their health status as well, and may have other compromising conditions that could attribute to SUID (respiratory issues, heart complications, etc.).

Race: Black babies are 2.5-3 times more likely to die due to SUID and this does not take into account any other type of disparity such as education level, marital status, or socioeconomic status.