Quality improvement initiative to improve infant safe sleep practices in the newborn nursery

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that healthcare professionals model their safe infant sleeping environment recommendations, yet adherence to safe sleep practices within our community hospital mother–baby unit was low. We used quality improvement (QI) methodology to increase adherence to infant safe sleep practices, with a goal to improve the proportion of infants sleeping in an environment that would be considered ‘perfect sleep’ to 70% within a 1-year period. The project occurred while the hospital was preparing for Baby Friendly certification, with increased emphasis on rooming in and skin to skin at the same time. Multiple Plan–Do–Study–Act cycles were performed. Initial cycles targeted nurse and parental education, while later cycles focused on providing sleep sacks/wearable blankets for the infants. While we did not meet our goal, the percentage of infants with ‘perfect sleep’ increased from a baseline of 41.9% to 67.3%, and we also saw improvement in each of the individual components that contribute to this composite measure. Improvements were sustained over 12 months later, suggesting that QI interventions targeting infant safe sleep in this inpatient setting can have long-lasting results. This project also suggests that infant safe sleep QI initiatives and preparation towards Baby Friendly Hospital Certification can be complementary.