Central PA Medicine - Summer 2017 - 37

daup h i n c m s .o rg

THINKING OUTSIDE
N

the Box
By GILLIAN NARO

ew Jersey has decided to tackle the problem of SUID with the launch of their
Baby Box program this year. The state plans to distribute about 105,000 boxes
to new mothers. To qualify, families must complete an on-line infant safety
course that teaches parents the necessities of safe sleeping conditions for their
expected child. Once they graduate from the course, they are given a box for free. Each
box is made of sturdy cardboard and comes with a firm waterproof mattress, along with
a few parenting essentials including diapers, wipes, onesies, breast wipes, creams, and
additional education materials on child safety.

This program is modelled off of Finland's Baby Box program that has been a staple
amongst new Finnish parents since 1938. Since the introduction of the Baby Box program,
SUID has dropped from 65 out of 1000 births down to 2.52 for every 1000 births.
Families have come to see the box as a rite of passage. Of course much has changed over
the 80 years since the Finnish program went into effect, but one thing can be counted
on; regardless of the family's socioeconomic status, every Finnish baby starts his or her
life in a cardboard crib.
Philadelphia has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the county. Dr. Megan
Heere and her research team at Temple University want to know if Baby Boxes can help
their city. Their research looks at bed-sharing rates and the sleeping locations of 1261
babies during the first week of infancy. Dr. Heere intends to compare the frequency of
bed sharing before and after the intervention of a postpartum educational session and
universal baby box distribution in the hospital. The researchers found that bed-sharing
was still being practiced by new mothers who had already been educated about its
contribution to SUID. This is largely due to their absence of an appropriate place for
the baby to sleep.
Many new families are simply not counselled on safe sleeping practices. Sadly, some
families do not have the means to implement safe practices at home due to lack of
resources. The Baby Box program's goal is to eliminate these two major risk factors in
new parent homes. Baby Boxes provide families with safe sleeping products and also
incentivizes participation in educational training on how to keep children safe when
they sleep. A new addition to any family should be a cause for celebration, not a worry
of how to keep your child safe. The Baby Box program will soon be rolled out in other
states too, including Ohio and Alabama. This program is an effective yet easy way to
bring drastic positive outcomes for new families.

REFERENCES

American Academy of Pediatrics AAP Task
Force on Infant Positioning and SIDS:
positioning and SIDS. Pediatrics. 1992;89
(6 pt 1):1120-1126.
Hauck FR, Herman SM, Donovan M, et al.
Sleep environment and the risk of sudden infant death syndrome in an urban population:
the Chicago Infant Mortality Study. Pediatrics.
2003;111(5 pt 2):1207-1214.
Heere M, Moughan B, Alfonsi J, Rodriguez J, Aronoﬀ S. Factors Associated With
Infant Bed-Sharing. Global Pediatric
Health. 2017;4:2333794X17690313.
doi:10.1177/2333794X17690313.
National Center for Health Statistics.
Compressed mortality file. https://www.cdc.
gov/nchs/data_access/cmf.htm. Accessed
January 16, 2017.
Rosenberg E. Finns' System for Newborns
Tested Abroad. New York Times. July 7, 2016.
Page A7.
Sudden Unexpected Infant Death and
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. CDC's
Sudden Unexpected Infant Death Activities.
https://www.cdc.gov/sids/suidabout.htm
Accessed March 17, 2017.

Central PA Medicine Summer 2017 37
http://www.dauphincms.org https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/cmf.htm https://www.cdc.gov/sids/suidabout.htm
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Central PA Medicine - Summer 2017
