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Healthcare providers seek to end unsafe sleep deaths among infants

Chris Caya/WBFO News

Unsafe sleep was a leading cause of preventable infant deaths in Erie County last year. A new effort is underway to eliminate the tragedy. 

Last year across the county there were 17 infant deaths related to unsafe sleep, according to BestSelf Behavioral Health Chief Operating Officer Elizabeth Woike-Ganga.
    
"Seventy-one percent of the deaths that were reviewed by the Child Fatality Review Team were due to unsafe sleep conditions," Woike-Ganga said.

BestSelf and Erie County's Child Fatality Review Team hosted an Infant Safe Sleep Summit at BestSelf's office on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo Thursday. About 60 healthcare professionals turned out to discuss the issue and develop solutions.  

"Some other communities have done some good work collaborating. In smaller communities like in the Southern Tier, they reduced their infant deaths from ten over three years to zero in the past three years. So we're hoping to do something similar."  

Best practices, Woike-Ganga says, include educating families during all stages of pregnancy, at birth and throughout a baby's first year of life.
    
"Parents need to be reminded because with sleep deprivation sometimes people forget or they'll fall asleep, they'll feel that the baby is sleeping better maybe on their chest or on the couch with them and then tragedies will happen that way," she said.

Woike-Ganga said the goal is to constantly remind parents of the ABCs of safe sleep.

"Alone, on their back, in a crib, with no crib bumpers, no blankets, no stuffed animals and preferably in some kind of sleep sack as opposed to being wrapped in a blanket," Woike-Ganga said.