FORT MYERS, Fla. — Before a baby is born at Lee Health, their parents get a crash course in a critical skill.
“Here we have the Safe Sleep practice,” Lee Health Injury Prevention Educator and Safe Sleep Lead Vilmarie Colon said. “This is what we recommend to the parents to do.”
Lee Health uses a crib that shows two babies side by side. One baby lays in a nearly empty crib wearing a sleep sack. Colon compares this safe sleeping environment to the crib on the right filled with things like toys and blankets.
“Also make sure that you are putting your baby to sleep with the sleep sacks. Don’t use blankets, don’t use pillows. Don’t leave toys in the crib,” Colon said. “Anything that baby can harm with.”
It’s a service born out of necessity. Every year dozens of Florida babies die from unsafe sleep practices. Most of them are just a few months old when it happens, old enough to start rolling over and sometimes get trapped.
“Babies sometimes, they’re not too strong to be able to move,” Colon explained. “So they get stuck there and they suffocate themselves.”
The number of unsafe sleep deaths jumped between 2020 and 2021 in Florida. More than a dozen Lee County babies have died in that span of time.
Reports from the Florida Department of Children and Families show a tragic pattern of babies found unresponsive. Investigators found that most babies had rolled over in a bed or crib. Some were asleep right next to their parents.
“Baby got trapped in the pillow. Baby got trapped between the wall and the bed. Baby fell from daddy’s arms. Baby suffocated between daddy’s arm and chest,” Colon explained. “So situations like that are the ones that we want to prevent.”
This year so far those numbers are trending down. Colon said giving parents education about safe sleep is a huge part of that.
“They’re 100 percent preventable if we deliver this education to the community. I feel and I believe that that list can get down,” she said.
The post Lee Health teaching parents ‘Safe Sleep’ practices for infants appeared first on NBC2 News.
