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The first months of a child’s life bring a myriad of worries, but a team of health care leaders and officials are launching an awareness campaign to touch on crucial healthy and safety issues for new parents and their families.
The collaborative effort came up with tips on infant sleeping habits, car safety, secondhand smoke and breastfeeding. The brochures, entitled “Keeping Your Baby Healthy and Safe” are available throughout Monroe County in obstetrical, family medicine and pediatric practices.
Such topics are traditionally discussed between a pediatrician and the baby’s parents. But the hope is that the conversations need to happen before the baby is born, said Paul Lehoullier, a doctor in the department of pediatrics at Rochester General Hospital.
One topic addressed is safe sleeping habits, as sleeping accidents have been associated wtih Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
“There’s infants every year that die from SIDS that are, a portion of them, preventable, where infants are placed in an inappropriate position or even a suffocated position,” Lehoullier said. “It’s incredibly tragic.”
The brochure includes updated information on proper car seat use — including a new update that recommends children up to 2 years old ride in a rear-facing car seat to limit injury in a head-on collision.
Breastfeeding is an exceptional way to keep babies healthy but culturally, it hasn’t been that popular over the years, Lehoullier said. Though the trends are changing as the health benefits for moms and babies become more widely known — the brochure states that breast-feeding burns around 500 calories per day.
Ann Dozier, an associate professor at the University of Rochester who carries a doctorate degree in nursing, says that the goal was to get as many groups engaged and committed to the idea as possible.
“It’s a shared concern,” Dozier said. “I think it creates an important message to the community that it isn’t just the concern of pediatricians, it isn’t just a concern of other groups.”
The effort brings together the Monroe County Department of Public Health, the University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester General Hospital, the Perinatal Network of Monroe County, the regional branch of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Rochester Pediatric Society, Referral and Evaluation Service for Abused Children (REACH) and Bivona Child Advocacy Center.
The brochure, which is available online will continue to be updated as recommendations change, Dozier said.
The first months of a child’s life bring a myriad of worries, but a team of health care leaders and officials are launching an awareness campaign to touch on crucial healthy and safety issues for new parents and their families.
The collaborative effort came up with tips on infant sleeping habits, car safety, secondhand smoke and breastfeeding. The brochures, entitled “Keeping Your Baby Healthy and Safe” are available throughout Monroe County in obstetrical, family medicine and pediatric practices.
Such topics are traditionally discussed between a pediatrician and the baby’s parents. But the hope is that the conversations need to happen before the baby is born, said Paul Lehoullier, a doctor in the department of pediatrics at Rochester General Hospital.
One topic addressed is safe sleeping habits, as sleeping accidents have been associated wtih Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
“There’s infants every year that die from SIDS that are, a portion of them, preventable, where infants are placed in an inappropriate position or even a suffocated position,” Lehoullier said. “It’s incredibly tragic.”
The brochure includes updated information on proper car seat use — including a new update that recommends children up to 2 years old ride in a rear-facing car seat to limit injury in a head-on collision.
Breastfeeding is an exceptional way to keep babies healthy but culturally, it hasn’t been that popular over the years, Lehoullier said. Though the trends are changing as the health benefits for moms and babies become more widely known — the brochure states that breast-feeding burns around 500 calories per day.
Ann Dozier, an associate professor at the University of Rochester who carries a doctorate degree in nursing, says that the goal was to get as many groups engaged and committed to the idea as possible.
“It’s a shared concern,” Dozier said. “I think it creates an important message to the community that it isn’t just the concern of pediatricians, it isn’t just a concern of other groups.”
The effort brings together the Monroe County Department of Public Health, the University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester General Hospital, the Perinatal Network of Monroe County, the regional branch of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Rochester Pediatric Society, Referral and Evaluation Service for Abused Children (REACH) and Bivona Child Advocacy Center.
The brochure, which is available online will continue to be updated as recommendations change, Dozier said.
