2 days ago
Decatur Memorial Hospital providing sleeping sacks for newborns
DECATUR, Ill. (WCIA) — The state of Illinois is spreading awareness about safe sleeping when it comes to newborns. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is the leading cause of death in babies under one year old, and now one Macon County hospital wants to help.
Decatur Memorial Hospital started giving out sleeping sacks to the parents of a newborn last month. Officials hope this will spread awareness and save more lives.
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The hospital is taking a new approach when caring for babies and their families. One nurse said it's important as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, also called SIDS, is starting to rise.
'It is the leading cause of death in infants under one years old,' said nurse manager Danielle Collins. 'And that leads to a variety of different things. It leads to people co-sleeping with their baby, people seeing different things that are not safe on the market for their baby to use.'
Collins said to babies, the tight-fitting sleep sacks are comfortable because it symbolizes the womb. In the last few weeks, the hospital has passed out nearly 40 of them.
'This has been in works for well over six-eight months of getting the sleep sacks purchased, the foundation providing them for us,' Collins said.
The Illinois Department of Human Services said every three days a baby in Illinois dies in their sleep. The hospital's foundation director, Paul Lidy, said Decatur Memorial has 1,100 sleeping sacks ready to go which will hopefully prevent this problem from getting worse.
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'Our goal is to help right from the get-go with a new baby to make sure that they are safely sleeping,' Lidy said.
He said the stock is expected to last until 2026, since normally they average between 800-900 births a year.
'We used to give out a baby spoon, something that was sentimental but maybe not as usable,' Lidy said. 'This is a direct way that we can impact that baby by safe swaddling them.'
Collins said they're just pushing the initiative to avoid common causes of infant death.
'Myself and my team are here to do every day, day in, day out,' Collins said. 'We want to provide the best quality care we can for our patients; see them not only as a patient, but as a family.'
These sleeping sacks are available to every newborn in the hospital.
The Illinois Department of Human Services said bed sharing with an infant is up to 10 times higher now. In 2022, there were more than 1,500 deaths related to SIDS.
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