Baby Boxes Are Bound to Reduce Infant Death

Tennessee health officials advise parents to be very careful when it comes to their newborns’ sleep, using baby boxes as a healthy alternative to beds. A new study indicates that hundreds of infants die every year due to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Nevertheless, doctors claim that most of these deaths can be due to suffocation. Rachel Heitmann, the director of the injury retention and detection with the Tennessee Department of Health, stated that in Tennessee there are very few deaths classified as SIDS.

Baby boxes represent a safe environment for babies to sleep

She argued that most of these deaths involve an unsafe factor of sleep. Back in 2013, the health department developed a Safe Sleep program which includes 65 birthing hospitals in Tennessee. The most important advice of this program is that babies should sleep alone in their cribs and on their backs. Angie Philips, the nurse manager for labor and delivery at Erlanger East Hospital, stated that grandparents reject this idea, believing that their traditional way is much healthier.

Grandparents tend to say that back in their times if they put the baby to sleep on their stomach there were just fine. This is one of the reasons why medical health care providers, health officials, and nurses should take care of educating parents and the relatives who keep the baby, instructing them about proper sleep conditions.

Parents are advised to not place stuffed toys inside the baby’s crib

Traci Josephsen, a clinical administrator for women’s services at Erlanger, stated that back in those days people were not as educated as they are today and there were no statistics which indicated the risks. Now that we have access to plenty of data can establish what is good and what is wrong for infants. The statistics suggest that mysterious SIDS deaths occurred because many parents rolled over on their babies when sleeping in the same bed.

Infants are better when sleeping alone. Nevertheless, it is OK for babies to sleep in their mother’s arms, but there is always a risk that sleep-deprived parents are more likely to fall asleep and the infant may fall to the floor or may be suffocated. Specialists indicate that the baby should sleep with no toys around, in the crib. Baby boxes are ideal since they are small and a baby can fit there perfectly, without having space to roll over on their stomach and suffocate.

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