Lubbock Health Department told EverythingLubbock.com Tuesday that a new trend to hit the United States, ‘baby boxes,’ could actually curb infant mortality.
While putting your baby to sleep in a cardboard box may sound a little strange, Public Health Director Katherine Wells said America is falling behind in the area of infant mortality, and the ‘baby box’ could be a viable answer.
“There is a real concern with safe sleep and children co-sleeping, and then the parent or a sibling rolling over on the child, or the child getting wound up in the sheets of the bed and suffocating, and we would really like to prevent those accidental deaths.”
Wells said the ‘baby box’ can be given to infants or new parents as a place for their baby to sleep, in addition to an avenue to prevent infant deaths due to SIDS.
“It gives the baby a safe place, an alternative to co-sleeping with the parents or sleeping on the floor.”
While the boxes are still new to the Lubbock community, they’ve actually been around for a while.
“They were originally something they did in Finland, and Finland has one of the lowest infant mortality rates, and they attributed that to every mom in that country getting one of these baby boxes,” Wells said, “So now different communities in the United States have been providing these boxes to individuals.”
The $1 million state-funded ‘Hope’s Grant’ is making the boxes available to anyone free of charge, and Wells said they’re at multiple locations around town.
“The baby boxes are available at both of our birthing hospitals, so Covenant and UMC have them, and they can offer those to any parents that express a need for a place to sleep. We also have them available here at the Health Department, there’s no income guidelines, if anybody expresses a need, we’re going to be providing them.”