Community Howard Regional Health recently became qualified to provide kits that include portable cribs and other infant sleep equipment to parents and families that need them.
Carrie Hill, an RN and IBCLC at Community Howard, became certified to instruct parents on the safe sleeping practices for infants. Through a partnership with the Indiana State Department of Health, Hill’s recent certification made the hospital eligible to provide the sleep kits, which include the crib, a fitted sheet, wearable blanket, pacifier and safe sleep information.
Parents or guardians must fit certain criteria to qualify for the free kits. A mother must be pregnant and be four weeks or less away from her due date or the child must be less than one year old. In either case, the child must not have a crib available and the parents do not have the means to get one.
If those qualifications are met, the parents, or soon-to-be parents, must attend an educational session with Hill regarding safe sleep practices. Hill said they must demonstrate that they can set up and tear down the portable crib before the session is over.
Hill stressed the importance of education about safe sleeping conditions. She said infants are supposed to sleep on their backs, alone and in a crib.
Hill said that other hospital staff could refer parents to her if they discover the baby does not have a safe sleep environment, or parents could contact her office to start the process of obtaining a kit.
Hill said this program, which Indiana has been operating for a while, is meant to lower infant mortality rates. She said that Indiana has a higher infant mortality rate than the national average. The average rate in the United States was 5.8 deaths out of every 1,000 live births in 2014, according to the most recent statistics from the Indiana State Department of Health. In Indiana, the rate was 7.1.
The Eastern region of the state, which includes Howard County, had the highest rate in the state at 8.6 deaths. The infant mortality rate only includes infants less than a year old.
Unsafe sleeping conditions accounted for 14.4 percent of the infant deaths in Indiana in 2014.
Hill said that not having a separate sleeping space for an infant, or having things in the crib with them like bumper pads or stuffed animals, can be hazardous situations.
“For me, personally, it’s been something that I’ve been passionate about,” said Hill.
She said that passion came from three separate infant deaths that happened in the final four months of 2010. All of those deaths came from parents having babies with them when they slept.
Other major factors in infant mortality, according to Hill, is overdressing the infant, which makes them too warm, and smoking around them.