Idaho Agencies Teach Safe Infant Sleep Practices for SIDS Awareness

In light of October’s SIDS Awareness Month, Ada County Paramedics and Canyon County Paramedics have united to deliver “The ABCs of Safe Sleep,” to their respective communities promoting safe infant sleep education to caretakers across both counties.

The ABCs of Safe Sleep, an acronym standing for Alone, on their Back in a Crib, is a nationwide initiative established to help protect infants from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID).

“When we get a 911 call from dispatch about a child not breathing—that’s the worse call we can get. That’s the call we fear,” Ada County Paramedics Battalion Chief Bart Buckendorf said. “We hope for a positive outcome with the child but too often that doesn’t happen. As a paramedic, it’s difficult. It changes you.”

Canyon County Paramedics Deputy Chief Steve Blados said his agency recently added safe sleep graphics and verbiage to the back of its ambulances—the same messages and images Ada County Paramedics affixed to its fleet.

“At Canyon County Paramedics, we’ve always said that our ambulances are moving billboards,” Blados said. "So we thought it made sense to use those ‘billboards’ to spread messages related to public health, as Ada County Paramedics has.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) defines SIDS as a form of infant death that cannot be explained, while SUID can be attributed to suffocation, asphyxia, entrapment, and various other disease or traumas. The AAP says these risks can be reduced by placing babies to sleep on their back on a firm surface, avoiding bed sharing with parents and keeping things like blankets, pillows and stuffed animals out of cribs.

According to 911 call records and county coroners, there were over 30 infant sleep-related deaths since 2010 in Ada County and Canyon County combined.

Buckendorf said he’s working with the state to urge more Idaho first responding agencies to tout the importance of the ABCs of Safe Infant Sleep and use their vehicles to help spread the message.

“Placing a baby alone, on their back, in a crib can help ensure babies don’t overheat, suffocate or become trapped under bedding,” Buckendorf said. “The ABCs of Safe Sleep can save lives.”

Blados said he hopes his agency and Ada County Paramedics can reduce infant sleep fatalities with this education.

“We want to spread the word to minimize the chances so that no family in Canyon or Ada Counties ever lose a child to unsafe sleeping conditions.”