Baltimore's spike in baby deaths is tragic but preventable

Baltimore health officials are on high alert after a recent spike in sleep-related infant fatalities — and they should be.

The alarming number of deaths during an unprecedented spate in December and January of one death a week for six weeks comes after years of strides in keeping infants alive by teaching moms how to properly put them to bed.

There were a high of 27 such deaths in 2009, but that dropped to seven in 2016 after the education campaign. But there has been an uptick in recent years — 17 deaths in 2017 and 13 last year.

We can’t afford to lose any more ground, and thankfully the city’s health department understands that.

Health officials don’t know for sure what caused the deaths, although all were in unsafe sleep environments. New health commissioner and pediatrician Dr. Letitia Dzirasa recently told The Sun editorial board the department may need to be more vigilant in its messaging. Go back to the basics and get the word out again. It seems like a simple tactic, but Public health campaigns need to be consistent to work. After all, new moms are created every day. Sometimes campaigns lose their effectiveness and need to be reinvigorated. AIDS advocates have said a resurgence in the spread of the disease in younger people came because the messaging has died down and people are no longer fearful of its spread.

In the case of infant deaths, some moms have heard the messages about the proper sleep method for a baby — alone, on their back, in a crib and in household where people don’t smoke, also known as the A-B-C-D method. But they need reminders of the dangers so they don’t slip when they are tired or not being so vigilant. It only takes one time to do it wrong and put a baby at risk.

The Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, which puts out the healthy baby sleep message for the city, has used billboards, city buses and educational materials placed in doctors offices and hospitals to get the word out. Now, they are taking it up several notches with a new social media campaign around the hashtag #NotOneMoreBaltimore.

Doctors treating pregnant women also need to re-emphasize safe sleep practices with all of their patients, both during the pregnancy and after delivery. The city’s B’more for Healthy Babies, a department of health initiative with the aim of making sure babies are born healthy, has sent e-mails to 800 doctors and other providers in the city to prod them to be more proactive. Every city hospital and pediatric clinic has also received a letter urging them to remind the moms of the dangers when a baby sleeps in a bed or a couch, rather than crib, or with an adult or another child, rather than alone — practices that have led to many of the deaths in recent years. None of the babies who died last year were sleeping in a crib and most were sharing a bed, according to the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs. Several were sleeping in positions other than the safest, which is on their backs. Most also lived in homes where people smoked.

More attention also needs to be paid to whether moms can afford cribs. There are cheaper alternatives, such as portable baby box beds, a popular concept since the 1930s in Finland, but only recently gaining traction in the United States. The boxes are both convenient for parents and safe sleeping spaces for babies.

The recent banning of smoking in public housing should also help with the issue. Beginning last summer, The Department of Housing and Urban Development has prohibited smoking cigarettes, cigars and pipes not just in all public housing units, but also common areas and outdoor areas 25 feet from buildings. Health officials should also push more smoking cessation programs to help adults stop the unhealthy habit.

Babies have smaller airways and weaker immune systems than adults, which can make second-hand smoke, or the smoke emitted into the air when someone puffs on a cigarette, dangerous. Babies can also ingest the toxins from third-hand smoke, or that in pillows, sofas, floors and clothes.

Even with the recent string of deaths, the city’s efforts at reducing infant mortality have been pretty successful. From 2009 to 2017 there was a 35 percent drop decrease in infant mortality and a 71 percent decrease in sleep-related infant deaths. We should also point out that there have been no more deaths since the surge in the early part of the year.

But we want to keep that momentum going, which is why the city should do all it can to prevent any more deaths.