Infant Safe Sleep: An Introduction and Model Program

Sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) occurs among approximately 3,500 babies in the US each year. SUID, the sudden and unexpected death of a baby less than 1 year old in which the cause was not obvious before investigation, includes sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), accidental suffocation in a sleeping environment, and other deaths from unknown causes. Although the SUID rate has declined since the 1990s, significant racial and ethnic differences continue. (1)

In this webinar, Dr. Sharyn Parks Brown, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), provided an introduction to SUID, including the epidemiology and trends over the past 3 decades, and described CDC’s role in reducing SUID. Dr. Brown also gave a brief introduction to available sources of data on SUID, including vital statistics data and CDC’s SUID and Sudden Death in the Young Case Registry. Ms. Cherie Sage, Safe Kids Kansas, and Ms. Christy Schunn, Kansas Infant Death and SIDS (KIDS) Network, discussed a collaboration used to create a statewide infrastructure to roll out safe sleep to specific venues, including the community, hospitals and outpatient maternal and infant clinics. They described the KIDS Network Safe Sleep Instructor (SSI) Project, which is designed to build collective impact to reduce sleep-related infant death. Abby Collier, National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention, moderated this webinar.