PHILADELPHIA — Doctors in Philadelphia hope to lower the city’s high infant mortality rate by distributing baby boxes that encourage safe sleeping.
The cardboard boxes are lined with a mattress and function like a bassinet. They’re meant to discourage parents from sleeping with their babies, which could cause accidental suffocation.
Temple University Hospital plans to give out 3,000 boxes over the next year to every woman who delivers there. The program started this week.
The hospital serves a low-income neighborhood where families don’t always have adequate resources to care for newborns. The boxes also include clothing, diapers and educational materials.
Temple officials say this is the largest such effort by any academic health system in the U.S., though that could not immediately be confirmed. It’s based on a successful initiative in Finland.
