Providing Proper Education To Nurses And Parents To Avoid Infant Sleep-Related Deaths

Infant sleep-related deaths are a leading cause of infant mortality and trace back to the unsafe sleeping practices that are followed by parents. Some unsafe sleeping practices including bed-sharing, not positioning the baby in the correct sleeping position, and keeping all extra items out of the crib. The most important part of making sure these unsafe sleeping practices are avoided is to educate the parents before or close after they take their infants home from the hospital as well as educating the nurses that are caring for the infant while in the hospital. By providing proper education to the parents and the nurses that are caring for these infants, the rate of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and sleep-related deaths could be decreased astronomically.

The first step in the education process should be educating the nurses that will be caring for both the mother and the infant when that infant is firstborn. By properly educating the nurses this will have a domino effect allowing the nurses to properly educate the mothers on how to achieve safe sleeping practices. Although it is important to inform the mother of the child, that is not the only person that should be informed on safe sleep practices. These practices should be expressed to all primary caregivers of the infant to make sure no caregiver does not get the necessary education.

Education for the nurse should include the current AAP guidelines, the hospital policies on safe sleep, along with home and hospital environment safe sleep recommendations. Some of the guidelines and recommendations include the infant sleeping on its back, in their crib, with no soft or plush items in the crib with them. While the infant needs to sleep in their crib, it is still encouraged by the American Academy of Family Physicians that the infant shares a room with the parents when first released from the hospital. It is clear that there is a lack of education due to statistics that were gathered in 2015 reporting 22% of mothers placed their infant in a position other than supine, 61% of mothers engaged in bed sharing with their infant, and 39% of mothers reported using soft bedding in their infants crib. Theses statistics are quite high and are a good representation of how educated the parents are on safe sleeping practices which is why it is so important in educating them before leaving the hospital to ensure there is no confusion.

It is also important that before the nurse begins to educate the mother on safe sleeping practices, the nurse needs to understand their own cultural beliefs and biases about the topic to provide comprehensive education. When the nurse can combine their cultural competence along with proper education from the recommended guidelines, it is more likely for this education to be more beneficial for the mother and family. It has also been proven that when the nurses modeling safe sleep habits in the hospital and the parents observe it they are more likely to reinforce these same habits when they are discharged and go home (Walcott). This shows a good example of how the social cognitive theory is used in day to day practices. Since the hospital staff does play a huge role in new parents' lives, the staff needs to model the correct safe sleep practices since the parents are observing and learning from them.

It is important when educating nurses and families about infant safe sleep to take note of their knowledge level before and after any type of learning experience to see if there is progress or not. The American Family Children’s Hospital conducted a study where there was a redesign in hospital policy and room design to increase nurse knowledge of safe sleep practices. The nurses' knowledge was assessed before and after this study was completed. The study was performed by completing a series of audits in infant rooms at the hospital to see how the infant was positioned, how the infant was wrapped, and what was in the infants' crib as well as having the staff complete a series of assessments to test their knowledge. Over twelve months this study showed a significant increase in knowledge in all aspects but with most of the increase being in the proportion of infants sleeping in infant cribs with the numbers going from 3.4% to 60.3%. This is just one example of how measuring the knowledge of the nurses can help determine whether what has been implemented is making a difference in the way care is being given.