Infant Safe Sleep: An Evaluation of Infant Safe Sleep Practices in the Hospital Setting

Objective: To evaluate nurses’ knowledge and beliefs about best practices for infant safe sleep. To determine the degree to which the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics’(AAP) for infant safe sleep were modeled and parent education was given by nurses at Hutzel Women's Hospital (HWH). Design: Mix methods, qualitative and quantitative descriptive study. Setting: Hutzel Women's Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, one of Michigan's largest birthing institutions delivering 5,000 infants each year. Sample: The sample included 50 mothers, 50 infants, and 41 nurses. Methods: Qualitative and quantitative methods such as structured interviews with mothers (N = 50), observing infants (N = 50) in their cribs, and assessing nurses’ (N = 41) beliefs and knowledge about best practices for infant safe sleep using the Infant Safe Sleep Knowledge questionnaire were used. Descriptive statistics were used to describe nurses’ beliefs about risk factors for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SIDS/SUID) and knowledge about AAP infant safe sleep recommendations. Chi-square analyses were used to examine relationships between nurses’ beliefs about SIDS/SUID risk factors and nurses’ personal characteristics. Pearson correlations and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to describe relationships between nurses’ beliefs and knowledge of AAP infant safe sleep risk practices. Results: The nurses were very knowledgeable about the AAP recommendations, and few areas of knowledge deficit were identified. The quantitative observation data and the qualitative data from mothers’ comments indicated that nurses modeled best practices and taught parents about infant safe sleep recommendations by strongly encouraging parents to place their infants on their backs. Conclusion/Implications for Nursing Practice: Perinatal nurses at HWH teach, model, and reinforce safe sleep practices to new mothers and families during hospitalization and prior to discharge. The nurses’ practice is appropriate and is consistent with the AAP infant safe sleep recommendations. Nurses play significant roles in working with families of newborn infants, and they are in key positions to affect rates of sudden infant death syndrome. Hospitals should provide nurses with ongoing continuing education to ensure that they remain current with safe sleep recommendations to educate patients and model safe sleep practices. © 2014 AWHONN, the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses