Sampson Regional Medical Center earns gold Sleep Safe certificate

In 2022, North Carolina experienced 828 infant deaths. Of those 828 deaths, 27 of them were caused by accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed. Most, if not all, of these accidental strangulation deaths can be from unsafe sleeping spaces.

It’s with this in mind, that Sampson Regional Medical Center applied for the National Sleep Safe Hospital Certification Program to get a gold level designation to help educate the community on what safe sleep places for infants are.

“Sampson Regional Medical Center has been recognized by the National Safe Sleep Hospital Certification Program as a Gold Level of Designation, honoring their commitment to best practices and education on infant safe sleep,” a press release from the hospital noted.

This certification has been months in the making.

“I would say we’ve been working on it for about a year. Just putting things in place and making sure we have all the requirements,”noted Shannon Capps, director of obstetrics at Sampson Regional.

But it’s something hospital officials felt was important after some of the staff went to a conference about unsafe sleep fatalities that occur across the state. In fact, it was at this conference, and seeing how many unsafe sleeping fatalities happen across the state, that sparked Capps’ own personal desire to get the message out about safer sleeping spaces.

“We participate in the perinatal quality of North Carolina collaboration for different projects for maternal health, but also for newborns as well,” she explained. “At one of those conferences, there was a presentation by the medical examiner of North Carolina about unsafe sleep fatalities and deaths across our state. And that’s kind of where we heard about it and the possibility of certifying our hospital.”

Capps continued, “To say that unsafe sleep-related deaths or fatalities in our state is an issue, that’s what primarily sparked the fire for me and my staff to want to get the message out.”

There are different levels of certification given to every hospital through the program. According to the National Infant Safe Sleep Hospital Certification Program manual, the lowest certification level is bronze.

In order to get a bronze level, hospitals must do the following:

• Implement hospital or hospital system-wide Infant Safe Sleep Policy

• Deliver safe sleep healthcare team member training to nursing staff caring for patients less than 1-year-old

• Provide safe sleep education to family or caregivers of infants less than 1-year-old

• Provide safe sleep education on the hospital website

• Hospital-wide images must meet American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) compliance

• Identify families needing a safe space and provide resources

The next certification level is silver. To get a silver level, hospitals have to do everything the bronze level does and one of the following:

• In-house use and/or gifted wearable blankets to infants less than one year

• Assign Cribs for Kids Hospital-wide Safe Sleep Training Module to every hospital employee

The last certification level a hospital can get is the gold level. To achieve this level, hospitals will have to do everything the bronze and silver levels have to do while also adding two more things to the list.

First, they have to assess and distribute a safe sleep space to families in need, and second, they have to provide community outreach education at least twice a year.

For Sampson Regional Medical Center, being a certified gold level hospital was important for its cause to promote safer sleeping practices both in the hospital and outside of it.

“It’s important, not only for us, but for hospitals across the state to participate in the safe sleep initiative because it starts with us when the babies are born, that we are teaching parents and families about safe sleep so they’ll model the same behaviors at home, and why that’s so important and the consequences if they do not,” Capps stressed.

In order to get the gold certification, Capps said the hospital had to put all of the mentioned practices into place before they could apply. The manual states that several of the practices listed must be in effect for a “minimum (of) three months prior to application submission.”

As per the requirements given to the hospital from Cribs for Kids, Sampson Regional will be at Newkirk Park for the National Night out in October to hand out educational information about safe sleeping spaces for infants. And while they participated in last year’s Blue Cross Blue Shield Aging Event to educate the community on safe sleep, this year staff has chosen to have a booth at one of the Alive After Five events.

“We have to do at least two (community events) a year. This year we’re going to do Newkirk again and then one of the Alive After Five (events) because it tends to be a different population … there are all ages.”

Capps added that in addition to those two events, plans were to do some things internally as well.

“This really includes housekeeping, this includes dietary, anybody who comes into a room, whether it be pediatric or someone else, and there’s a baby sleeping under a year old in there. If they see something that’s unsafe, they should be able to recognize it and let the staff know.”

In addition to community events and those happening within the hospital, Capps pointed to the hospital’s website, sampsonrmc.org, which offers tips for families wanting to learn more about safe sleep. The tips can be found on the Women’s Health page at the bottom.

These tips include things like making sure you “always place your baby on their back to sleep, both for naps and nighttime sleep, until they are over one year old” since it reduces the risk of Sudden Infant Death, using a firm and flat sleep surface like a crib, bassinet or play yard with a tight fitting mattress, avoiding sharing a bed with your baby, keeping the sleep area free of loose bedding, stuffed animals and pillows, and more.