Associate Professor Deborah Raines helps develop infant safe sleep program
Published February 4, 2015 This content is archived.
Deborah A. Raines, PhD, EdS, RN, ANEF, and Sisters of Charity Hospital units practice council members were recently published in Neonatal Network for their work on a program for safe sleep for newborns.
The November/December 2014 article "An Evidence-Based Safe Sleep Teaching Program" describes the units practice council's experience of developing an evidence-based practice teaching program focused on safe sleep for newborn infants.
For the study, members of the unit practice council Terry Povenelli, RN, Donna Manquen, RN, and Ashley Wagner, RN, along with Raines, conducted a literature review on infant deaths and infant sleep with a focus on accidental suffocation and strangulation. This problem is of specific relevance to the Buffalo community, where, as the study indicates, extra blankets in the sleeping environment due to extreme weather may pose an additional risk for infant deaths.
Evidence showed that initiatives focused on providing education to new parents is an effective method of reducing the incidence of sleep-related deaths in newborns. Because of this research, teaching new parents about safe sleep is now part of the standard of care in the nursery and a required component of the discharge instructions. Literature and a door hangtag were also created to remind parents and other infant caregivers of the best ways to ensure a safe sleep environment.
