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Health Officials: Infant Suffocation Deaths On The Rise

DETROIT (WWJ) - Since this time last year, unsafe sleep practices have resulted in a 50-percent increase in the number of Detroit babies who died of asphyxiation. Officials say nine babies suffocated to death in just the past 12 days.

Loretta Davis, President and CEO of the Institute for Population Health in Detroit, wants to remind new parents and their families that infants should only sleep in an approved crib and never with an adult or older child.

When put into its crib, she said an infant should always be placed on his or her back.

"There's this myth that's still in the community that baby needs to be placed on their tummy," Davis told WWJ Newsradio 950's Pat Sweeting. "But, babies are safest on their back. So, on their back. The crib needs to be free of bumper-guards, from toys, from blankets, from stuffed-animals."

Davis said these things look good, but can turn a baby's crib into a death trap.

The Institute for Population Health is offering free portable cribs along with safe-sleep instructions.

For more information, parents can call the safe-sleep portable crib hotline at 313-919-2740.

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