Gemeinschaftsmedizin und Gesundheitserziehung

Abstrakt

Parental Adherence to Infant Sleep Safety Recommendations

Martine Hackett and Hannah Simons

Objective: Key infant sleep safety messages to prevent sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) recommend putting infants to bed in the supine position and not sharing a bed with infants in order to prevent them from suffocating. Though these messages have been promoted by health care providers and health educators, adhering to them regularly remains a challenge for parents.
Methods: Using a web-based survey on a national sample, factors associated with increased probability of adherence were examined to assess how parents negotiate infant safety recommendations.
Results: Findings revealed that parents had knowledge of these recommendations but did not always follow them; adherence depended on how effective parents believed the recommendations are at preventing death and how the messages were presented.
Conclusion: Health care providers and educators of infant safety should continue to focus on changing the public’s beliefs about the risks of the prone position and bed sharing, with an understanding of how and why the information about infant sleep safety is negotiated in the day to day lives of parents.