DFPS campaign to prevent infant sleeping deaths
AMARILLO, TEXAS -- Last year, Child Protective Services investigated 167 co-sleeping deaths. Those happened when babies slept in the same beds with adults or older children. To help prevent these deaths the Texas Department of Family & Protective Services or (DFPS) has launched a new awareness campaign "Give Babies Room to Breathe".
The DFPS alert on the dangers of infants under the age of a year old sleeping in the same bed with other family members, is to teach some commonly used precautions to help them put their babies to bed safely.
The 3-month-long campaign will feature several public service announcements over radio, TV, and the internet. The advice, let infants sleep by themselves, place them on their backs in a crib with no stuffed animals or pillows, This advice helps prevent both SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) and co-sleeping deaths. In addition to this advice, officials say that second hand smoke is another factor that increases the chance of SIDS. They say co-sleeping deaths can even happen to toddlers 2 years old.
"Avoid that just horrendous situation when you wake up in the morning and find a child is dead, and there is no explanation or even worse, you find that you rolled over on them because you were sleeping with them. The psychological damage that does to a parent is just terrible, and we want to avoid that because these are preventable deaths," said Greg Cunningham, Dept. of Family & Protective Services.
The English and Spanish campaign will start May 3rd, and will run until the end of July with the help of the Texas Association of Broadcasters.
For more information the DFPS website.
