Safer Sleep Week – Neonatal Pathway Education Rebecca Uddin shares her advice for parents with newborn babies
Rebecca Uddin has been a Neonatal Pathway Educator at our Children's hospital since last year and worked within neonatal care since 2013, offering valuable advice to parents and families on how to keep babies safe during sleep. We asked Rebecca for her expert advice to families and parents on providing safer sleep for infants, to improve development and reduce cases of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
We asked Rebecca the importance of ‘safe sleep’ for infants and she shared:
“Continual exposure to negative and stressful stimuli, such as loud noises and medical interventions can have long term impacts on babies causing them to have poor self-regulation - it can also have an impact on parental attachment and the development of relationships for the child when they are older and can lead on to them developing attention deficit disorders. It’s good to make sure babies when getting ready to go home, are sleeping on their backs in a flat cot, with no toys or other items including positioning boundaries in there, positioned with their feet at the end to the cot 'feet to foot' to avoid them wriggling under any loose blankets.”
The pictures below show how much the brain develops in utero and in the first five years of a child’s life. It is important that when in hospital, we protect this sleep and quiet time for babies to support the development of these systems. Therefore, our Neonatal Specialist Workforce team have launched our ‘Quiet time’ on the Neonatal Surgical Ward from 12 noon – 3pm to actively support development.
Rebecca said: “We use Quiet time to reduce non urgent interventions from healthcare professionals. Empowering parents to actively use ‘quiet time’ for their babies will further allow them to understand their babies' cues and promote family engagement.
We asked Rebecca, how can parents replicate ‘Quiet time’ in their own homes when they bring their little bundles of joy home? She said: “Parents and carers can facilitate safer sleep for their newborn, by firstly ensuring that babies sleep in their cot or moses basket in the same room as them for the first 6 months of life, so that they are close by. Maintaining a room temperature of between 16-20 degrees will help avoid them becoming too hot or cold as well as keeping their head uncovered, so removing any hats before they go to sleep. A smoke free environment is best for all babies.”
We’d like to say a big thank you to Rebecca and the team for sharing their information with us this Safer Sleep Week, to raise awareness for parents and carers through education.