The report, Out of Routine: A Review of sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI) in families where the children are considered at risk of significant harm, highlights that safer sleep is not always simple for families to follow.
The most vulnerable families in the UK can sometimes face unexpected events and situations that test their usual sleep practices and a multi-agency approach to developing relationships with families is the right way forward.
Safer sleep is a standard piece of advice that every family should receive by the time their baby is born. While this advice is or all families, we understand that for some in more vulnerable situations, additional support in understanding and implementing safer sleep practices is required. We revised our co-sleeping guidance in 2019 as part of a partnership with Unicef’s baby Friendly Initiative, Public Health England and Basis to encourage professionals to have open discussions with families. The guidance particularly focused on the issue of co-sleeping, which as the report highlights is ‘both too common and too complex to apply a simple ban’.
We will consider the review in detail as we plan The Lullaby Trust’s future strategy, and believe the current pandemic provides us with the opportunity to develop a different approach to safer sleep and engaging with families.
We have a history of success in reaching families digitally and we hope that our position as a trusted source of information for families means we can help shape this area of work in partnership with others.
Our thoughts are always with the families who have experienced these tragedies, and the long-term impact on their lives. We are always here to support you, and we know that preventing other families going through such a tragedy is something that they look to us to do. We hope this review brings safer sleep and SUDI high on the local and national agenda to help us achieve this.
Read the full review here.
