Healthy Habits: First Candle

 First Candle aims to help families with infants by helping them create a safer sleep environment to prevent Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID). 

 The rate of Sudden Unexpected Infant Death has remained the same for over a decade. This includes accidental suffocation.  According to a report in Pediatrics, in 2015 there were 28.3 fatalities due to suffocation for every 1,000 U.S. infants.

I had a chance to interview Alison Jacobson, creator of First Candle, to learn more.

How prevalent is SUID? Every year 3,600 babies die from Sudden Unexpected Infant Death. The vast majority of these are due to unsafe sleep and accidental suffocation which can be prevented.

What are some factors contributing to the lack of improvement in SUID rates? There is a dramatic racial disparity in the rates of SUID with Black babies dying at twice the rate of white babies.  This is due to cultural beliefs about the way a baby should sleep, lack of access to education about safe sleep, socio-economic factor and bias on the part of health care provider in the information they provide.

What are some key tips that parents need to know to help reduce the risk of SUID?

          The safest place for a baby to sleep is alone, on a firm and flat mattress with nothing in the area including pillows, blankets, stuffed animals or fluffy bumpers.

If you’re tired put your baby down in his safe sleep area rather than holding him. If you should fall asleep he could roll off of you onto the couch cushions or suffocate on your chest.

Don’t allow baby to sleep in a carrier, bouncy seat or other inclined product as baby’s head can slump forward and cut off his airway.

First Candle is changing the paradigm by listening to families’ challenges and objections, problem solving and, if they insist on keeping baby in bed, how to make it safer. First Candle is doing things differently compared to other organizations by speaking directly to communities and meeting families – partnering with trusted members of the community to share information and offer support. This includes everyone in the baby’s ecosphere.

View these tips, and learn more by visiting First Candle.