New Jersey Baby Boxes Aim to Reduce Infant Deaths

In New Jersey, "baby boxes" will be given to all expecting and new parents in a safe sleeping campaign aimed at reducing the number Sudden Unexpected Infant Deaths.

The parents will receive the mattress-lined boxes along with infant care supplies courtesy of The Baby Box Co. after finishing an online parenting education program on its website www.babyboxuniversity.com, the Cherry Hill Courier-Post reported.

The program plans to give away roughly 105,000 boxes in the state. Cooper University Health Care and the Southern New Jersey Perinatal Cooperative will distribute the boxes along with other organizations.

There are about 3,500 Sudden Unexpected Infants Deaths (SUID) each year, including deaths attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, unknown causes and accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An estimated 93 percent of infant Sudden Unexpected Infant Deaths were directly related to sleep and sleep environments last year, according to a report by the Child Fatality & Near Fatality Review Board.

"In a significant proportion of these deaths, an unsafe sleep circumstance is a contributing factor," Dr. Kathryn McCans, an emergency department physician at Cooper University Health Care, said in a statement from the hospital. "Baby Box University will help families make safe and healthy choices for their children by educating them about simple changes that will decrease the risk that a death will occur due to an unsafe sleep environment or SIDS."

CNN reported that the Baby Box Co. launched its first citywide initiative in San Francisco in November.

"The use of baby boxes helped Finland achieve one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates," the company said then about the use of such devices. "The Finnish initiative enables every pregnant woman in the country to claim a free baby box once she receives prenatal care and parenting information from a healthcare professional. The program helped decrease Finland's infant mortality rate from 65 deaths for each 1,000 children born in 1938 to 2.26 deaths per 1,000 births in 2015."

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