The HOPES initiative addresses two significant infant mortality problems. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and the growing number of accidental suffocation/strangulation infant deaths associated with the sleep environment.
Harsh realities that surround these infant deaths in North Carolina include:
An average of 100 infants die of SIDS each year
(53 deaths in 2010)
N.C. SIDS rates continue to exceed the national rate
Accidental infant suffocation/strangulation deaths associated with the sleep environment are preventable
Practices within hospitals and different units are often inconsistent and contradictory to infant sleep safety best practices
N.C. hospitals have varying levels of knowledge of evidence-based practices about infant safe sleep training, policies and parent education
Key hospital staff have not received adequate training or tools to put safe sleep practices and policies in place
Purpose
Nationally, hospitals have been identified as key in the fight to reduce SIDS. Inconsistent modeling of infant sleep practices by hospital nurses for parent/parents and their families (other infant caregivers) perpetuates unsafe infant sleep practices that may be adopted.
The purpose of HOPES is to increase the capacity of hospitals to develop and institutionalize evidence-based infant safe sleep practices in newborn nurseries and neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). HOPES promotes staff training, policy development and parent education on infant safe sleep best practices in the hope that North Carolina's newborns will live to celebrate their first birthday.
HOPES builds on four years of training and technical assistance from the N.C. Healthy Start Foundation and provides support and resources for hospitals wanting to assess and strengthen infant sleep policies, implement staff in-service training and/or provide quality parent education for new mothers and their families.
Objectives
Increase the number of N.C. hospitals who evaluate their in-house policies, practices and parent education with the goal of implementing (or strengthening) infant safe sleep practices and education
Codify infant safe sleep best practice standards in written guidelines or policies
Improve the capacity of N.C. hospitals to provide evidence-based, infant safe sleep training for well-baby nursery and/or NICU nursing staff by adapting national nursing curriculums to the needs of N.C. hospitals
Convene hospital representatives for updates and networking
Increase patient and caregiver education on infant sleep safety provided by hospital nursing staff by offering educational materials
Increase education and outreach in the African American community by offering and providing training to nurses who are members of the African American community and who also practice at area hospitals, health departments and clinics
HOPES strengthens the N. C. Back to Sleep Campaign's efforts to address the disparity among African American families/communities disproportionately affected by SIDS. It has partnered with medical organizations like the Central North Carolina Black Nurses Council, Chi Eti Phi and African American nursing sorority, the Old North State Medical Society (a N.C. African American Medical Society) and the N.C. Pediatric Society.
For more information contact
N.C. Infant Safe Sleep Campaign Coordinator
North Carolina Healthy Start Foundation
(919) 828-1819
