Putting Baby Safety Month in The Infant Safe Sleep Context

September is Baby Safety Month, a reminder of the choices and challenges facing parents, extended families, and caregivers in creating both waking and sleeping safe environments for infants.Sponsored annually by the Juvenile Product Manufacturers Association, Baby Safety Month is a time to focus on the prevention of accidents and the prevention of accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed (ASSB), a sleep-related infant death.While the rate of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), another sleep-related infant death, has been falling, the number of babies dying from ASSB has risen from 4.38 per 100,000 live births in 1997 to 25.5 in 2019.From 1999 to 2015 alone, SIDS rates decreased 35.8%, and ASSB rates increased 183.8%, a sobering statistic.(1)Accidental suffocation is now the most common cause of injury deaths for babies in the United States under one year old, with 82% being attributable to ASSB.The majority of these cases were due to soft bedding and occurred most often in an adult bed.(2)This information underscores the need to address the causes of ASSB deaths -which are preventable --and to counsel families on what to do when mother and baby leave the hospital.