By Matt Leingang
Enquirer staff writer

BEDDING DEATHS

Unsafe bedding practices - babies sleeping in adult beds or couches, where loose blankets or pillows can suffocate - were a factor in 12 infant deaths last year in Hamilton County. Elsewhere in the area, Butler County reported three such deaths in 2003; Clermont County, one; Warren County, two. Kentucky does not track such deaths, but that will change beginning this year, said Marcia Burklow, administrator of Kentucky's child fatality review team.

A Hamilton County program will purchase 250 cribs for low-income families.

It's a move health officials hope will reduce the number of infants dying because of inappropriate bedding practices, especially babies sleeping in adult beds or on couches, where loose blankets or pillows can suffocate them.

Unsafe bedding practices were a factor in 12 infant deaths last year, up from eight in 2002, according to the Hamilton County Child Fatality Review Team, which documents the cause of death of all children in the county 17 or younger. Those numbers have been fairly consistent in the past five years.

In many of these cases, the parents couldn't afford cribs.

Although the free-crib program is aimed at helping the poor, all parents should get the message: Put your baby to sleep alone, on his back and in an empty crib, health officials say.

"I can't tell you how many kids we see sleeping in playpens, couches and adult beds," said Patty Eber, executive director of the Hamilton County Family and Children First Council, a group of 80 public-and private-sector social agencies.

Money for the free cribs will be available Wednesday, thanks to a $25,000 grant.

The grant comes from the Sudden Infant Death Network of Ohio, a nonprofit agency based in Cuyahoga Falls.

Hamilton County is the first recipient of such a grant in Ohio. A similar program will soon be launched in Cleveland.

The new cribs cost about $100 each.

Only families enrolled in the county's Help Me Grow program are eligible. The program makes home visits to 1,500 mothers and teaches them about proper nutrition and environmental safety.

Health officials will make follow-up visits with families who get the free cribs to ensure that proper bedding practices are followed, Eber said. Bed sharing is a controversial topic. Sleeping with a newborn is convenient for breastfeeding, and some mothers feel that breast-feeding a baby in bed fosters important bonding, Eber said.

But a study last year in the journal Pediatrics found that babies who sleep in adult beds are up to 40 times more likely to suffocate than those who sleep in cribs.

Sleeping on sofas or chairs, with or without an adult, also increases the risk.

E-mail mleingang@enquirer.com