Echuca Regional Health maternity ward staff Jodie Jones, Mollie Karl, Karen Taylor, Millie Reed, Maddie Vick, Jess Dwyer and Ella Chandran demonstrating a safe sleeping set-up. Photos: Jordan Townrow.
Each year, Red Nose Australia promotes Safe Sleep Week, sharing advice and educating the community on lowering the risk of sudden and unexpected death in infancy.
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SUDI accounted for 117 deaths in Australia in 2022, including 17 in Victoria and 25 in NSW.
This includes SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome, making up 106 of these deaths.
Safe Sleep Week encourages safer sleeping habits, with key guidelines to reduce the risk of SUDI.
At Echuca Regional Health, these six steps are critical not only to practise but to promote to new parents and family members.
“As a health facility, we’re promoting the safe sleeping guidelines,” maternity unit manager Karen Taylor said.
“It starts with childbirth education and follows through here with post-natal on the ward and what we practise here on the ward as well.
“We have a home care service ... they reiterate that stuff as well, and that’s carried through with the maternal and child health service who take over from about day five as well.”
The key steps are:
always place baby on their back to sleep;
keep baby’s face and head uncovered;
keep baby smoke-free, before and after birth;
safe sleeping environment, night and day;
sleep baby in their own safe sleep space in the same room as their parent or caregiver for at least the first six months; and
breastfeed baby.
These tips are centred around keeping baby’s airways clear, reducing the risk of overheating, suffocation and choking, and helping their protective reflexes to work.
Echuca Regional Health practices the safe sleep guidelines for all infant patients, including seven-month-old Bronte Webb. Photo: Jordan Townrow
Photo by
Jordan Townrow
As the Echuca-Moama community grows, ERH is ensuring messaging is accessible for the diverse families calling the region home.
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