By Miriam Rutherford
Sweet sleep for infants equals peace of mind for parents and caregivers.
For over fifty years, parents and caregivers have been inundated with changing advice and recommendations for safe sleep positions and environments. Despite some excellent official recommendations, a significant number of infants do not respond to these recommendations and anxiety about head shapes and other possible dangers is widely experienced.
Many of us just ‘wing it’ whilst wishing we had known more before baby arrived. Some of the most helpful infant basics include information on feeding, sleeping and preventable injuries and even fatalities.
Safety concerns and the need to prevent injuries or fatalities range from:
- Preventable suffocations
- Prevent falls from cot/cribs
- Preventing current worldwide concerns regarding clicky hips
- Ensuring comfortable, safe positioning for babies who suffer from reflux, gord/gerd and/or colic
- Prevention of a flat, deformed head as most parents are now aware that ‘the younger the baby, the softer the head’
A Sleepwrap helps maintain safer sleep positions for all stages of development by preventing a young infant rolling or creeping into potentially dangerous or simply awkward positions, and gives extra time to attend to a baby who is in the climbing and falling stage.
Statistics show that in ‘developed’ countries, nearly one in five 0-2 year olds who are admitted to hospital from falls are from cot and bed falls. A bed guard may be helpful but also may not prevent a fall. Creeping and rolling can start as young as 3-4 weeks old and other physiological abilities such as climbing, falling and rolling off beds happen at different stages of development.
Other useful products include head wedges used in conjunction with a Sleepwrap to comfortably help alternate baby’s head at each sleep when sleeping an infant on the back – helping to prevent flat and deformed head moulding.
