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First Lady Tomblin promoting Infant Safe Sleep Month in West Virginia

BRIDGEPORT, W. Va. — The leading cause of death among babies between the ages of one month and one year is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, which research has partially attributed to unsafe sleeping condition. While the numbers of babies dying from SIDS has declined over the years, the issue still persists.

In an effort to raise awareness, September has been declared “Infant Safe Sleep Month” in West Virginia and First Lady Joanne Tomblin has been travelling around to hospitals around the state with the goal of informing new families of safe sleep conditions for their babies.

“Our babies are our future. Our babies are important to West Virginia and we want all of them to be safe and keep them safe,” Tomblin said.

She and the governor wanted to make the issue a priority after the First Lady made a visit to CAMC’s Neonatal Unit last year and discovered an infant dies every 10 days in the West Virginia, giving the state one of the the highest infant mortality rates.

“The statistics are kind of startling, so we thought it would be very important to have an awareness campaign across the state for parents, for caregivers, just for the general public to know how easy it is to prevent this,” she said.

Tomblin sought out the Our Babies: Safe and Sound campaign, a project of TEAM for West Virginia Children.

The group has two main goals: teaching parents how to “keep their cool” when their baby cries and teaching safe sleep conditions for infants.

These conditions include placing the baby on its back in its own crib with only light blankets and clear of toys, bumper pads or pillows.

Those working with the campaign have complied the information in various formats such as short videos, baby books and pamphlets for easy distribution.

“All of our materials are free, people can download materials from our website or order materials from out website,” Becky Kind, co-coordinator of Our Babies: Safe and Sound said. “We also have over 200 community partners across the state that work at the community level that get our materials out, that have been trained and then order materials and get them out in various ways.”

On Friday, Tomblin made a stop at United Hospital Center to present the hospital’s president Bruce Carter with a proclamation celebrating the Infant Safe Sleep month and to acknowledge their participation in Our Babies’ initiative “Say Yes to Safe Sleep.”

UHC is one of twelve hospitals and home visitation programs in the state to join the initiative, which takes the materials form Our Babies and presents them directly to the parents during visits.

Lee Ann Romeo, the Maternity Unit’s Patient Education Coordinator, said their hope is if the information is presented to them at the hospital, it will increase the chances of the parents putting what they learn to practice.

“Most parents have been very receptive to it,” she said. “They are surprised and shocked when I share with them that we had 42 babies last year that died from unsafe sleep practices and I think it kind of hits home that ‘Hey, I’m going to do what I have to do to keep my baby safe.'”

The program is yielding positive results. Natalie King-Selario, Clarksburg resident and mother of two children, including two and a half month-old Hudson, said she was unaware of what constituted unsafe sleep conditions, especially the danger with putting things in the crib with the baby.

“Without this campaign, I would have gone home and probably and done that,” she said. “I would have put the bumper pad on because it matched the room and if I thought he was cold, I would have covered him with a blanket. The campaign made me realize the things I shouldn’t do.”

First Lady Tomblin hopes these types of programs can expand so that every parent and relative of new parents can be aware of the issue.

More information about Our Babies: Safe and Sound and Say Yes to Safe Sleep can be found here.





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