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Baby bed program launches in Nanaimo

Expecting families can get free baby beds and care gifts under new Island Health program
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Erin Kenning, Island Health’s acting manager for public health, shows one of the baby bed new and expecting mothers came to pick up, Monday. Island Health is expanding its baby bed program across Vancouver Island. TAMARA CUNNINGHAM/NEWS BULLETIN

Hundreds of expecting and new mothers waited in line Monday to pick up the first batch of free baby beds offered in the Harbour City.

“I think it’s really exciting actually,” said Natalie Sponaugle, after receiving one of the peach-coloured, cardboard beds with her husband David. It will hold the couple’s first baby.

“It’s something that a lot of families could use and I am excited about all the different resources. It’s our first kid so there’s a lot to learn ahead of time.”

Island Health kicked off its baby bed program in Nanaimo on Monday, offering new and expecting parents a box, with a mattress and fitted sheet as a safe sleeping space for their baby, as well as gifts like diapers, wipe samples and sleeping sack.

There were an estimated 350 people at the event and 190 beds given out.

The baby beds were first introduced in the Cowichan Valley in 2015 and Port Alberni and west coast communities last year. Now, the initiative is going Island wide.

Since last Saturday, kickoffs have happened in Victoria, Nanaimo, Campbell River, the Comox Valley and Mount Waddington and as of Oct. 1, people will be able to pick up beds at any of the communities’ public health units.

The idea is to connect families with local care practitioners and not only provide them information about safe sleep practices, like that their baby should sleep on its back without a pillow, heavy cover or toys, but offers parents a safe sleep surface for their baby to use in its first months at home.

It’s a program targeted at reducing infant deaths, but health care practitioners also see it as honouring motherhood and parenthood and being a focus of conversation about being a new mom and dad.

Helen von Buchholz, project manager for public health and Island Health, said the program is all over Canada but what’s different here is this is the only province that the baby box program is in full partnership with public health.

It acts as a distributor with Baby Box Co., a program that offers beds, products, resources and education. Dollars are also contributed to the initiative from external sources like Nanaimo Hospital Auxiliary, which donated $20,000 to the local launch.

“Over the last 10 years the province of B.C. has done a lot of really good work around evidence-based messaging around safe sleep so we have messages of [the baby] sleeping on your back without pillows, without bumper pads and we have seen a decrease in our infant mortality rate,” said von Buchholz. “What was troubling was we still had infants dying of [sudden infant death syndrome].”

She said that type of death is preventable, with otherwise healthy babies dying because of environmental factors, in some cases relating to suffocation and lack of safe sleep practices and Island Health wanted to do what it could to address that.

Eighty-one infants died in Island Health’s jurisdiction between 2012-2014, and 15 per cent were from sudden unexplained death in infancy where in almost every case potential sleep practice was a factor, like sleep surfaces, sleep environments and sleep positions, according to an infant mortality report.

Von Buchholz couldn’t say how successful the program is when it comes to infant mortality rates, pointing out it takes five years before there’s statistical change in a small population, but said results sound promising. Island Health received 450 surveys from participants in the Cowichan Valley and she said women self-identified behaviour changes around safe sleep or unsafe sleep behaviors, like no longer having the baby sleep on the sofa.

“There’s been so much excitement and moms have really been wanting [the bed] across the Island. I often hear, when is it our turn or when are we getting it?” she said.

The bed is for babies until they are four to five months old or when they begin to roll. Women who are pregnant or families with a new baby up to three months old are eligible and must register at rightfromthestart.viha.ca. Registrants will watch online baby care videos at www.babyboxuniversity.com to earn a certificate to pick up a free bed.