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Fire service team up with hospital for sleep safe campaign

Barnsley Hospital and South Yorkshire Fire & Rescue have teamed up to provide information and advice to new parents and parents-to-be.

Barnsley Hospital’s Maternity Services Team have been working with Community Safety Officers from South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service to develop the Barnsley Babies Initiative. The initiative aims to raise awareness of how parents can ensure that babies are sleeping in a safe environment. The initiative was launched in line with the Lullaby Trust’s national Sleep Safe campaign.

The Sleep Safe campaign promotes the importance of safe sleeping for the whole family including advice and guidance on how to significantly lower the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). While SIDS is rare, there are essential things that parents can do, or avoid doing, to lower the chances of SIDS.

Barnsley Maternity Services team have undergone training with South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service to learn about fire safety and how parents can ensure that their child is kept safe whilst sleeping. The Barnsley Babies initiative promotes messages including; the importance of a smoke free home and car, the best sleeping position and environment for babies and temperature control.

During the week commencing 14th March Barnsley Hospital will be supporting the national Safer Sleep Week. Maternity staff will be available in the Women’s Services Foyer between 9-4pm in to offer advice and information to parents, visitors and members of staff.

From Monday 14 March Barnsley midwives will provide all pregnant women with a Sleepsafe bag which includes a room thermometer which has advice about safe temperatures printed on it, a scan frame to display prenatal scans and a document file for parents to keep important health information about their baby in. The bag also has essential information and maternity contact details printed on it.

Joanne Poskitt, Specialist Midwife at Barnsley Hospital said: “We have been working with the Fire Service for a while now and we are extremely proud of the Barnsley Babies initiative, we have had some fantastic feedback from our mums. We are excited to launch the Sleepsafe bags for new parents and initial feedback has been positive. We encourage anyone who has any questions or needs advice on safe sleeping to come along to the Women’s Services main entrance during the week commencing 14 March and speak to a maternity staff member.”

For more information about the national Sleep Safe campaign, please visit the Lullaby Trust website at www.lullabytrust.org.uk.

This content was last updated on March 15th, 2016