Having a baby is a life-changing experience and can come with parenting advice from just about everyone, even on how to best get your baby to sleep. There’s one subject few should be talking about but should. 

“Truly, the most dangerous thing your baby does during its first year of life is sleep,” said Devon George, the program officer for Cribs for Kids, a nonprofit that educates about the dangers of unsafe sleep environments for babies.   

If your baby is not sleeping in a safe space, you could be putting them at risk.

“It is a death that we don’t talk about, so people don’t think it’s gonna happen, but it is happening,” George said. 

UPMC Magee has been a part of the program for about 10 years, and over that time has helped parents learn the ABCDs of safe sleep: Baby is “alone,” on its “back,” in a “clean” crib, away from “danger.”

“Parents need to know that an adult bed is always too soft and a baby should never be placed on an adult bed,” said Vivian Petticord, the director of Women’s Health Service Line at UPMC. 

The thing is, despite the guidelines, George says we’re seeing an increase of newborns suffocating while sleeping nationally and locally.

“Our numbers in Allegheny County are looking like they did like 20 years ago,” George said. 

Those numbers, according to the Allegheny County Health Department in 2008, were around 13 deaths a year. Social media, George says, is one reason why we’re seeing the numbers go up.

“Images that show unsafe sleep and encourage that behavior, right? Like if you find your right page and group to follow, then it gives you permission to do that,” he says. 

“And I think it’s really important to have that conversation with your pediatrician. You know, they can be helpful,” Petticord said. 

Because nothing is more important than the health and safety of your baby.