SIDS Awareness Month

This October, join NICHQ in recognizing SIDS Awareness Month. Help us spread the word about the importance of creating safe sleep environments to help reduce the risk of SIDS and other sleep-related infant deaths.
Cropped shot of an adorable little baby boy sleeping in his mothers arms at home

Safe Sleep Resources & Tools

Equitable Safe Sleep Strategies and Messaging

Health professionals can help empower families to make the best decisions for their babies by openly discussing their concerns about safe sleep and breastfeeding recommendations and provinding evidence-based resources so they can make informed decisions about their caregiving. 

Check out a helpful collection of tools and resources from the AAP for pediatricians and healthcare professionals to provide education and guidance to parents and caregivers on infant safe sleep.

NICHQ INitiatives

Our Safe Sleep Work

The use of a health equity lens is imperative in the work of making breastfeeding and chestfeeding a national norm. We’re grateful to have insight from a diverse team of experts on these project-related breastfeeding and safe sleep initiatives.

National Action Partnership to Promote Safe Sleep Improvement and Innovation Network (NAPPSS-IIN)

NAPPSS-IIN is an initiative to make infant safe sleep and breastfeeding the national norm by aligning stakeholders to test safety bundles in multiple care settings to improve the likelihood that infant caregivers and families receive consistent, evidence-based instruction about safe sleep and breastfeeding.

Learn more about this project

Safe Sleep Collaborative Improvement and Innovation Network (CoIIN) to Reduce Infant Mortality

An initiative to decrease the instances of sudden unexpected infant death (SUID) rates and reduce racial disparities in sleep-related deaths.

Learn more about this project

Community-Centered Hospitals Initiative (CCHI)

The Community-Centered Hospital Initiative (CCHI) aims to address the stark and persistent disparities in the health outcomes of mothers, birthing people, and infants by strengthening collaboration and power-sharing between communities and hospitals.

Learn more about this project

Publications

Community infant safe sleep and breastfeeding promotion

A mixed-methods study to improve population-level health outcomes

Though breastfeeding is a protective factor against sudden unexpected infant death, motivations to breastfeed often couple with unsafe infant sleep practices. Racial/ethnic disparities are present in sudden unexpected infant death, accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed, and breastfeeding. The study aimed to investigate the relationship between community-level strategies and associated state-level outcomes for infant safe sleep and breastfeeding.

Findings

We identified two mixed insights: gaps in promotion and outcomes, and persistent disparities between infant safe sleep and breastfeeding promotion and outcomes. Findings indicate conversational approaches could improve infant safe sleep and breastfeeding promotion, outcomes, and relative disparities. Community collaboration is needed to address organizational capacity limitations in promoting infant safe sleep and breastfeeding.

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LEARN WITH NICHQ

Tools to Improve your Practice

Browse all Safe Sleep Resources

Improving Safe Sleep Conversations

Webinar that demonstrates tactics to engage families from different backgrounds in meaningful conversations about safe sleep.

Watch now

Podcast logo for Before Birth and Beyond: Improving Care in MCH with NICHQ.
S1E5 Exploring NAPPSS-IIN Project Insights and Future Visions: A Conversation About Safe Sleep and Breastfeeding

We discuss some of NICHQ’s breastfeeding and safe sleep initiatives while highlighting the impact of combining infant safe sleep (ISS) and breastfeeding promotion on the community level.

Listen now

Centering Community Voices

A webinar on how NAPPSS-IIN shifts to community-driven QI for safe sleep and breastfeeding.

Watch now

Podcast logo for Before Birth and Beyond: Improving Care in MCH with NICHQ.
S1E7 Equity Considerations for Safe Sleep and Breastfeeding/Chestfeeding Messaging

In honor of SIDS Awareness Month, hear the panel discussion from NICHQ’s 8/23 webinar focused on equity in safe sleep and breastfeeding messaging, featuring a number of NICHQ’s community partners.

Listen now

NICHQ Insights

Reading List for SIDS Awareness Month

At NICHQ, we are committed to making infant safe sleep and breastfeeding the national norm. Check out our insights to learn how you can support this initiative.

View all insights

3 Lessons from Centering Community Voices: Safe Sleep and Breastfeeding Using a Quality Improvement Framework

Quality improvement (QI) work is driven by an interest in implementing changes that lead to improvements. In breastfeeding and safe sleep work, this can be challenging. It can be difficult to fully and accurately understand the source of maternal and child health inequities. Ultimately, professionals do not yet have a clear idea of which strategies…

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Addressing Historic Trauma to Improve Breastfeeding and Safe Sleep Among Indigenous Families

            Kim Moore-Salas, IBCLC, enrolled member/citizen of Navajo Nation             Shawn Meyer, RN, BSN, CLC, member of Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Please note, we use the terms Indigenous People and Native Americans to reflect the preference of our interviewees. “Breastfeeding is a cultural tradition,”…

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Closing the Gaps in Safe Sleep Education in Underserved Populations

This series focuses on how states are reaching underserved populations as part of the Collaborative Improvement and Innovation Network to Reduce Infant Mortality. While the country’s rate of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) has dropped by more than 50 percent over the past two decades, SIDS continues to claim the lives of about 1,500 U.S. infants each…

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Applying an Equity Lens to Safe Sleep and Breastfeeding Efforts

Black families are twice as likely as white families to have their baby die in the first year of life. In Ohio and Wisconsin, they are three times as likely. These statistics are more than numbers; they represent real families who suffer unimaginable loss—loss that stems from the persistent effects of systemic racism on the…

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Additional Articles & Resources

State Perinatal Quality Collaboratives

List of PQCs funded by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Visit the Site

The Power of PQCs

Video showing the impact that PQCs have on the communities they serve. Produced by the NNPQC.

Watch the Video

PQCs in the News

Articles in news outlets covering state PQCs, their activities, and the people that work in the collaboratives.

Visit the Site

Patient Safety Bundles

From the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health. PSBs are collections of evidence-informed best practices that address clinically specific conditions in pregnant and postpartum people. The NNPQC helps provide TA and support to PQCs in adopting the core AIM Perinatal Mental Health Bundle.

Visit the Site

Perinatal Quality Collaboratives

The CDC’s landing page for PQCs, including helpful infographics, videos, and links to help explain what PQCs are, how they work, and stories, learnings, and publications that have come out of the state PQCs.

Watch the Video

Save the Date

Weekly Observances

Five distinct weeks are celebrated during Breastfeeding Awareness Month.

  • August 1-7: World Breastfeeding Week
  • August 8-14: Indigenous Milk Medicine WeekAugust 8-14
  • August 15-21: Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Breastfeeding Week
  • August 25-31: Black Breastfeeding Week
  • September 5-11: Semana de la Lactancia Latina

NICHQ News

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Get information on observances like Breastfeeding Awareness Month and other NICHQ news delivered directly to your inbox.

Spread the Word

Safe to Sleep® SIDS Awareness Month Toolkit

In October and beyond, infant caregivers and service and healthcare providers can join Safe to Sleep® and its partners to encourage safe infant sleep and help raise awareness about ways to reduce the risk of SIDS by using this SIDS Awareness Month Toolkit.

SIDS Awareness Month Toolkit

Shareable resources from Safe to Sleep®

View the Kit
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