Baby sleeping deaths targeted in Ky
- Sudden Unexpected Infant Death claims the lives of about 85 children under age 1 each year in Kentucky
- Hoping to reduce those numbers, Kentucky plans to launch an education and awareness campaign Oct. 1
- The "ABCs" of safe sleep for an infant: "Alone, on the back, in a crib."
- An adult sleeping with the infant in the same bed or on a couch or recliner is a factor in about half the deaths
Seeking to give his wife a break from their fussy newborn on that fateful night in 2010, Sam Hanke took their 3-week-old son, Charlie, and cuddled him on his chest while lying on the couch watching television.
Hanke and the infant fell asleep, but Charlie never woke up.
"When I woke up, he was gone," said Hanke, a pediatric cardiologist who lives in Northern Kentucky and works at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID), which includes SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), claims the lives of about 85 children under age 1 each year in Kentucky. But many of those deaths are preventable, according to public health officials.
Hoping to reduce those numbers, Kentucky plans to launch an education and awareness campaign Oct. 1 to remind the public of the "ABCs" of safe sleep for an infant.
"Alone, on the back, in a crib," said Dr. Ruth Shepherd, who as the state's director of maternal and child health in the Department of Public Health is heading up the campaign timed to coincide with national SIDS Awareness Month.
The campaign also will stress the risks of co-sleeping — an adult sleeping with the infant in the same bed or on a couch or recliner, a factor in about half of such deaths.
"People in general have no idea how many babies die from sleep-related deaths," said Dr. Melissa Currie, a forensic pediatrician with the University of Louisville and member of a panel of experts created in 2012 to review child deaths involving abuse or neglect in Kentucky.
Some infants suffer unexplained sleep deaths where they appear to have simply stopped breathing. But infants also die from suffocation after a sleeping adult rolls on them or in situations in which an infant's head gets wedged behind a couch cushion or under a pillow or blanket.
Breastfeeding an infant in bed can be hazardous because an exhausted mother may fall asleep and suffocate the baby, say experts on infant safety.
"There's a real possibility they will fall asleep," said Erika Janes, a nurse with Kosair Children's Hospital who teaches expectant parents about safe sleep for infants. "Moms are tired."
Shepherd said parents who want an infant close by should place the crib in their room, near their bed.
"It's fine to have a baby in the room," she said. "But we don't want the baby in the same bed."
Grant aims to help Kentucky babies
About half the Kentucky infants who died in 2012 were sharing a bed or other sleep arrangement — such as a couch or recliner — with someone else, according to the state's most recent public health report on child deaths.
The risk for the baby sleeping with a caregiver increases when the adult is impaired by drugs or alcohol, Currie said.
The state doesn't collect data on when a caregiver is impaired, but Currie is asking the Child Fatality and Near Fatality Review panel she serves on to look into whether the state could do so, having seen a number of cases of infant sleep deaths where drugs or alcohol impairment of the adult appeared to be a factor.
"It's the impairment while sleeping with kids that we'd really like to have a handle on," she said.
Smoking during a pregnancy or in the home around an infant is also a risk factor for SUID.
While recommendations on infant sleep have varied over the years, for the past two decades public health officials have urged parents to put infants to sleep on their backs in a crib to try to prevent such deaths. That advice includes a warning to avoid blankets, pillows, stuffed animals or bumper pads.
"A clean, clear crib," Shepherd said, adding that means a standard crib or other infant bed that meets federal safety standards with a firm mattress, taut sheet and nothing else but the baby — on his or her back.
Parents should buy a new crib or portable crib that meets safety standards. Parents who need help selecting a crib or help buying one should go to the Cribs for Kids website, said Hanke.
Around 4,000 infants die from SUID each year in the United States. After premature births and birth defects, it is the leading cause of infant death, Shepherd said.
'It happened to us'
Concerned by cases it reviewed of infants who died, often while sharing a bed with a caregiver, the Child Fatality and Near Fatality panel last year recommended "a statewide, public awareness campaign."
Shepherd said a task force of pediatricians, state child protection officials and others began meeting this year to plan such a campaign. They enlisted the aid of Western Kentucky University's ImageWest, a full-service advertising and public relations agency staffed and run by students.
The WKU group has created a website, safesleepky.org, public service announcements, a social media campaign and a series of videos to be featured on the website.
Among couples featured in a video are Dwayne and Christina Ellison, of Georgetown, who lost an infant in 2013 when Finley, their 3-month-old, fell asleep in his baby carrier at the sitter's and didn't wake up.
Dwayne Ellison said he and his wife have found comfort through a foundation in their son's name, Finley105.org, that raises money for SIDS research, largely through an annual 5K run in Scott County.
The couple decided to participate in the video, he said, because they want to spare other families the devastating loss they experienced.
"We want to let people know what's going on," Ellison said. "I couldn't imagine that happening to us. Then it happened to us."
'Sleep Baby'
Hanke, who with his wife, Maura, has created a nonprofit foundation, Charlie's Kids, to spread the word about safe sleeping practices for babies, said he fully supports Kentucky's efforts to raise awareness about safe sleep for infants. Education is critical, he said.
One of his foundation's most effective and popular tools is a children's book it distributes, "Sleep Baby," for new parents to read to their infants.
Distributed in 44 states and nearing 1 million copies in print, the book is distributed through hospitals, doctor's offices, pre-natal classes and other outlets, Hanke said.
In Kentucky, the books are distributed through HANDS, a public health program that offers home visits to new or expectant parents. Norton Healthcare provides the books to parents whose babies are born at or transferred to its hospitals.
Shepherd said she would like to find funds to buy and distribute more books throughout Kentucky.
Written by Cincinnati pediatrician John Hutton, a colleague of Hanke's, the book is provided to parents in hopes they get the message about safe sleep.
Even though Hanke is trained as a pediatrician and knew to place Charlie on his back in the crib, it didn't occur to him a brief rest on the couch with his baby would have a tragic outcome, he said.
"It's happening and it's happening a lot," he said. "I'd like to be part of ending these deaths."
Reporter Deborah Yetter can be reached at (502) 582-4228 or a dyetter@courier-journal.com.
INFORMATION
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