According to the Internal Medicine Journal, babies who are 2-4 months of age are at the highest risk of dying from SIDS. The most recent evidence calls for the following major interventions for preventing SIDS:

 

·Supine sleeping, preferably swaddled with no toys, bottles or blankets in the crib 

·Sharing the same room with parents for the first 6-12 months

·Avoiding smoking before and after pregnancy

·No co-sleeping with parents

·Parents placing child in crib before falling asleep in a couch or chair

·Breastfeeding 

·Promoting pacifier use while sleeping

·Educating parents about SIDS

(Horne, 2019). 

 

In practice, I have seen this policy enforced by both nurses and physicians. Most interactions between nurses and parents I have observed have been positive and constructive in regard to safe sleep. However, I have also observed several nurse-parent interactions in which the mothers are insistent on co-sleeping with their infants, allow loose blankets in the crib with their infants and leave bottles in the crib overnight with their infants. I have also experienced entering a patient room to discover the parents asleep with their baby in the mom’s arms on the couch. Despite policies existing about safe sleep and its benefits, parents still make the ultimate decision on how to position their child while sleeping.

 

The biggest challenge I have observed in this disconnect between policy and practice is the fact that cultural beliefs and practices often dictate infant sleep routines, and sometimes nurses have trouble in educating these parents with opposing views. For example, the African American population often allow their infants to sleep prone, due to the belief that this position is better for their comfort and digestion. Native American and Latino cultures often heavily encourage co-sleeping, and this belief has been popularized in other cultures as well. 

Nurse involvement is important because nurses are constantly at the bedside, observing how parents interact with their children. Nurses have a first-hand look at how their patients are being positioned by their parents, and can often easily cultivate teaching moments into daily care.

The key to understanding other cultures is to listen to why parents feel the way they feel and collaborate with them to come up with solutions. Nurses often feel intimidated when faced with parents who are set in their traditions that are not always safe, however utilizing resources such as interpreters, social workers, and conducting research on patient cultural practices can help ease some of this anxiety. Listening to the parent’s perspective on why they prefer to let their infant sleep on their belly can not only give insight to the nurse but will also make the family feel valued and respected. A great example of compromise I have witnessed was when a parent believed in the healing power of crystals and insisted on keeping crystals in the baby’s crib at night. The nurse and mom came to a compromise and they allowed the mom to keep the crystals on the windowsill, still in the room but out of the crib. 

Nurses must be educated on the dangers of SIDS, and this includes nurses who are not even in pediatrics or women’s health. All nurses could be exposed to infants in any environment they practice in, whether it be inpatient or outpatient, pediatrics or adult health. Nurses who work with adults may not be aware of the current statistics regarding SIDS. However, adult patients could still present to an emergency room or medical surgical unit with children and infants. Therefore, it is important that nurses of all specialties are educated on the importance of safe sleep for infants. This way, nurses of all specialties can be equipped with the knowledge to intervene if they observe an unsafe situation. 

Informing parents and the general public of safe sleep practices by raising awareness in the community will ultimately make nurses’s jobs easier in terms of teaching. If parents know coming into the hospital the proper sleep methods and techniques for their infant, this saves the nurse time when formulating their plan of care and discharge. Hospital- sponsored fundraisers and support groups for victims’ families and events promoting the importance of SIDS are great starting points to promoting awareness within communities nation-wide. 

·Levels of Prevention