Abstract
The Safe Babies New York: The Upstate New York Shaken Baby Syndrome Education Program is a statewide effort to educate all parents about normal infant crying, stress management, and safe sleep in order to decrease Shaken baby syndrome, injuries, and sudden unexplained deaths in infancy. This program is a comprehensive, hospital-based, universal prevention program that educated parents at the time of the infant’s birth about the dangers of violent infant shaking. The program’s impact on the annual incidence rate of Shaken baby syndrome in Upstate New York was unprecedented. From 1998 to 2005, the average annual incidence of inflicted infant head injury decreased from 8.2 to 3.8 cases per year or from 41.5 cases per 100,000 live births to 22.2 cases per 100,000 live births.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to express sincere appreciation to the key informants for this case study—Mark S. Dias of the Penn State University; Milton S. Hershey Medical Centre in Hershey, PA, USA; Kim Smith of Upstate New York in Buffalo, NY, USA; and Kathy DeGuehery of Upstate New York in Buffalo, NY, USA—whose consultation made this project possible.
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Appendices
BRIO Model: Safe Babies New York: The Upstate New York Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) Education Program
Group Served: Parents and caregivers of newborns.
Goal: To educate parents about the normalcy of infant crying, the dangers of violent infant shaking, how to calm a crying infant and reduce caregiver frustration and anger, and how to wisely select other caregivers for the infant in order to reduce the frequency of abusive head trauma.
Background | Resources | Implementation | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
95% of severe neurotrauma cases in infants less than 1 year of age are the result of nonaccidental causes Initial in-patient hospitalization costs for the care of a shaken infant can approach $70,000 USD, $300,000 for the next 5 years, and in excess of $1 million over long term for one shaken infant | Funding from grants and participating hospitals provided more than 450 $US in funds and in-kind donations Educational material developed from Dr. Dias’ own research Program materials were to be distributed by obstetrical and neonatology nurses to all new parents during their postpartum stay | Hospitals in different areas phased in the program overtime and made adaptations to fit their environment Project coordinators work with nurse managers to distribute and collect project material and data Maternity ward nurses trained to deliver program material Parents asked to confirm receiving materials and to commit to follow-up phone call about materials | The average annual incidence of inflicted infant neurotrauma has decreased from 7.0 to 2.2 cases per year Other child abuse statistics suggest that the dramatic and temporal drop in SBS cases in Western New York can be directly attributed to the Shaken Baby Syndrome Education Program Replication in Central Pennsylvania |
Life Space Model: Safe Babies New York: The Upstate New York Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) Education Program
Sociocultural : civilization/community | Interpersonal: primary and secondary relationships | Physical environments: where we live | Internal states: biochemical/genetic and means of coping |
|---|---|---|---|
Educational materials to all Western New York parents of newborns Involvement of community nurses, public health, and hospitals | Create expectation that the parenting relationship will act as protective system Strengthening parenting relationships and caregiver to child relations | Address the implications of sound as a source of stress Identifying and educating caregivers about unsafe sleeping environments | Parental commitment statement acknowledging education about SBS Follow-up calls to refresh coping mechanisms |
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Hunchak, C. (2020). Safe Babies New York: The Upstate New York Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) Education Program. In: Volpe, R. (eds) Casebook of Traumatic Injury Prevention. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27419-1_34
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