HOPES: Safe Sleep Outreach in Hospitals

October is National Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) Awareness Month!

This year, the North Carolina Healthy Start Foundation in collaboration with the NC Division of Public Health, has partnered with 49 hospitals across North Carolina to distribute safe sleep onesies and information to parents of all babies born in these hospitals in October, as part of the HOPES project.

The purpose of HOPES is to increase the ability for hospitals to implement infant safe sleep policies and practices in their relevant units including pediatrics, newborn nurseries and neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). HOPES began in 2007 with the purpose of engaging North Carolina hospitals, in counties with higher SIDS or accidental asphyxiation infant deaths, in a dialogue around their current infant sleep practices and their staff education and training needs. Since then, the project has moved beyond dialogue into action and has worked with hospitals from across the state regardless of their infant death rates. The number of SIDS deaths in individual North Carolina counties varies each year, so it is important to invite hospitals across the state to participate.

By providing hospital staff with training, current statistics, new research and hands-on practical experience, they are better informed and more likely to model consistent safe sleep behavior to parents thus increasing the likelihood that parents will continue the behaviors at home. HOPES provides hospital staff with the necessary knowledge and skills.

This outreach promotes safe sleep strategies that reduce the risks of SIDS and accidental suffocation and strangulation in the sleep environment.

Baby models a safe sleep onesie with the message:
"Stomach to Play, Back to Sleep, For Baby's Safe Sleep"
Note: for a PDF of the above, click on the photo.

Safe Sleep Onesies Raise Awareness:

Hospitals

• Remind hospital staff of how they can role model safe sleep strategies.
• Provide a teachable moment for nurses and physicians to share safe sleep strategies with new parents.

New Parents

• Onesies and fact sheets inform parents and caregivers of the safest way to put their babies to sleep once they get home.
• When parents dress their babies in the safe sleep garments, they are reminded of the Back to Sleep message.

Community

• By partnering with hospital public relations departments, local legislators who support SIDS education, and journalists across the state, media coverage of this project promotes baby safe sleep to the public at large.

2010 Hospital Partners

All hospitals that deliver babies in North Carolina were invited to participate in HOPES. In total, the project will place safe sleep information in the hands of more than 8,000 parents. Participating hospitals and community-based organizations, as of October 1, 2010 include:

• Beaufort County MC
• Blue Ridge Regional Hospital
• Brunswick Community
• Buncombe County Health Center
• Caldwell Memorial Hospital
• Cannon Memorial Hospital
• Cape Fear Valley Medical Center
• CarolinaEast Medical Center
• Carteret General Hospital
• Chowan Hospital
• Cleveland Regional Medical Center
• CMC – Nor thEast
• CMC - Pineville
• CMC – University
• CMC-Levine Children's Center
• CMC-Main
• Columbus Regional Healthcare Systems/Columbus County Hospital
• Davis RMC
• Frye Regional Medical Center
• Grace Hospital - Blue Ridge Health Care
• Halifax Regional Medical Center
• Haywood Regional Medical Center
• Heritage Hospital
• High Point Regional Health System
• Iredell Memorial Hospital
• Johnston Medical Center – Smithfield
• Lake Norman RMC
• Lenoir Memorial Hospital
• Maria Parham Medical Center
• Mission Hospitals
• Morehead Memorial Hospital
• Moses Cone Health System-The Women's Hospital of Greensboro
• Nash Health Care Systems
• Pitt County Memorial Hospital
• Presbyterian Hospital – Charlotte
  Presbyterian Hospital- Huntersville
• Presbyterian Hospital- Matthews
• Rex Healthcare
• Richmond Memorial
• Rowan Regional Medical Center
• Southeastern RMC
• Stanly Regional Medical Center
• The Birthplace at Gaston Memorial Hospital
• Thomasville Medical Center
• UNC Pembroke Healthy Start Corps.
• Wake Med Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
• WakeMed Health and Hospitals
• Wilson Medical Center
• Womack Army Medical Center

For more information about baby’s safe sleep, contact call the Foundation at (919) 828-1819.

Other Links:
For Families
Tips to Help Baby Sleep Safely

For Health Professionals and Community Groups
Baby's Easy Safe Sleep Training Kit
Free safe sleep educational materials in our catalog.

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