Sommer Rose, MS, Division of Child Adversity and Resilience, received a one-year, $5,000 grant from Home State Health to help support Children’s Mercy’s Safe Sleep, Safe Babies program. The grant covers a project period of Aug. 18, 2025-Aug. 17, 2026.
Sleep-related deaths are a significant problem with nearly 3,500 infants affected every year. With the hope of reducing the risk of sleep-related deaths, Children’s Mercy is a certified hospital through the Cribs for Kids’ National Safe Sleep Hospital Certification program, and researchers are helping inform the community of safe sleep practices for infants.
Since 2021, the Safe Sleep, Safe Babies initiative has been helping approximately 600 Missouri families every year by providing training and informative materials to 25 community-based partners and over 100 professionals who are able to educate families in the Kansas City metro area. The program ensures that community partners provide safe sleep education to their families and, depending on availability, distribute safe sleep kits to local families who are prenatal or have a child under 1 year old to help prevent sleep-related deaths in infants. A kit is provided for each child meeting the age requirements in the household and an extra kit is provided if the child frequently sleeps in another household. Each kit, purchased through Cribs for Kids, includes a portable crib and additional safe sleep materials like a fitted sheet, halo sleep sack, pacifier and educational books on healthy sleep practices. This grant will help provide kits to approximately 78 families in the community.
The Safe Sleep, Safe Babies team is constantly looking for ways to support their community partners and improve the initiative. Families fill out a crib liability form and a pre/post evaluation, so researchers can assess how their sleep knowledge has changed after training is provided.
The goal of the program is to distribute safe sleep education and related materials to increase the amount of low-risk sleeping habits among families with the hope that this will reduce the rate of preventable sleep-related infant deaths.
“Accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed is the leading cause of infant injury deaths in Missouri. These deaths are preventable through safe sleep practices,” said Rose. “We hope these practices become the norm so that every infant is sleeping safely.”
Zarmina Ehsan, MD, Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine Ambulatory Services, serves as a co-investigator on this project.