How To: Sleep Safely
Posted: October 18, 2011
The November 2011 issue of Pediatrics publishes a revised and expanded American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) policy statement on safe sleep. Safe Kids Mid-South, led by Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, supports these recommendations from the AAP:
- Sitting devices, such as child safety seats, strollers, swings, infant carriers, and infant slings, are not recommended for routine sleep in the hospital or at home. Infants who are younger than 4 months are particularly at risk, because they might assume positions that can create risk of suffocation or airway obstruction.
- Child safety seats and similar products are not stable on a crib mattress or other elevated surfaces.
- The recent AAP clinical report also discusses strategies to avoid flattening one side of the infant's head -- such as avoiding long periods of time in child safety seats and changing the infant's orientation in the crib.
