Wilson Memorial Hospital is a registered hospital for the Ohio Hospital Association (OHA) statewide population health initiative – “Safe Sleep is Good4Baby” to support Ohio’s infant mortality reduction efforts. Ohio has one of the worst infant mortality rates in the nation, ranked 47th in 2010 and in 2012, had an infant mortality rate of 7.6 per 1000 births.
“Although many organizations have been working tirelessly to improve the statewide rate, Ohio continues to fall behind nationally,” said OHA President and CEO Mike Abrams. “As health care leaders in our communities, hospitals can help address this issue in a coordinated and targeted way.”
In support of OHA’s mission to collaborate with member hospitals and health systems to ensure a healthy Ohio, the OHA Board of Trustees has approved an aggressive, multi-strategy plan to reduce the infant mortality rate by five percent each year from 2014-2016, ultimately improving Ohio’s rate to the Healthy People 2020 goal of 6.0 by 2020.
Many factors influence infant mortality, but in Ohio each year, more than 150 incidents are sleep-related Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), accidental suffocation, positional asphyxia, overlay and undetermined causes. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Ohio Department of Health recommend the ABCs of safe sleep to avoid these unfortunate tragedies. All infants should be placed to sleep Alone, on their Backs and in a Crib every time. Ohio’s hospitals, including Wilson Memorial, have a unique opportunity to reach the parents of nearly 140,000 newborns every year with educational messages about the importance of safe sleep.
To help align and coordinate Ohio hospitals’ efforts to promote safe sleep practices, OHA’s ‘Safe Sleep is Good 4 Baby’ campaign is designed to position Wilson Memorial’s health care workers and clinical experts as leaders and advocates for the preferred methods of infant safe sleep. Through their interactions with new parents and newborn caregivers, the hospitals staff will offer resources and guidance about safe sleep environments and provide necessary support to reverse this trend.
Wilson Memorial will focus on three areas:
• Modeling Safe Sleep Practices
• Counseling New Parents and Families
• Advocating and Educating the Community
“At Wilson Memorial, the Family Birth Center staff provides the best care to every newborn, and starting them off right with a safe sleep environment is what is safest for our babies,” stated Jana Schnippel, RNc-EFM, BSN, Interim Manager of the Family Birth Center at Wilson Memorial Hospital. “Collaborating with the Shelby County Health Department, we have also started the Newborn Home Visit Program, which has been very beneficial to assess the sleep environment at home as well as providing support to our mom’s and babies. The visits are voluntary and free for first time mothers, teen mothers, and breastfeeding mothers as well as many others if they request and are residents of Shelby County.”