Community Health Teaching Experience: Safe Sleeping
Lynn Syles
Grand Canyon University: Concepts in Community & Public Health
January 15, 2015

Community Health Teaching Experience: Safe Sleeping The immediate postpartum period can be scary for a new mother. A vaginal birth is physically demanding and drains the woman of energy. There may be perineal injury afterwards. For a woman who had a c-section, there is a different spectrum of healing that needs to take place. The care of an infant can be overwhelming for these women, who have to recover themselves. There is very little time in the hospital for health teaching and most hospitals rely on thick folders full of printed information to educate the parents on infant safety. This author presented a pamphlet on safe infant sleeping to a new mother support group. In this paper, a summary of the teaching plan and evaluation of the teaching experience will be discussed. This author will also discuss the response to teaching, as well as strengths and areas for improvement.
Summary of Teaching Plan
This pamphlet presentation was presented to a new mother’s support group at Central Christian Church. Faith communities are ideal locations for reaching groups with health-promotion programs. Faith communities emphasize the spiritual dimension of health (Maurer & Smith, 2009). Advertising for this group is mainly centered among low-income, often transient, areas in Las Vegas, including WIC and welfare offices. These demographics were taken into consideration by this author in preparing the presentation. In a study of low-income mothers with, at most, a high-school education, advice from friends and family was the most common source of information (Reich, 2005). This can be dangerous, as many aspects of infant care have changed over the last few decades. Friends and family may also be mis-educated, learning unsafe habits from word- of- mouth instead of research.
The teaching plan included a variety of techniques to engage the group members. An introduction started the presentation. This author then used the “hook” to catch the members’ attention. A few assessment questions were asked to gauge the experience and knowledge base of the group. The first objective was to identify harmful objects that could pose a threat to an infant’s safety when placed in the crib. First, this author discussed those items and then demonstrated the dangers of a stuffed bear using a baby doll toy. The audience was then allowed to ask questions. The second objective was to identify the best sleeping position for an infant. A discussion of sleeping position followed. After the discussion, this author demonstrated the safety reasons why supine is the best position for infants. The group offered questions. This author then directed the group back to the previous objective, asking what items should be removed and/ or not placed in an infant’s crib. The third objective was to identify one resource for safe sleeping. This author discussed the resources that were listed in the pamphlet and included a verbal description of where each resource was located. Group members were encouraged to contact these resources. Following this discussion, group members were asked to demonstrate the safest position for infants to sleep. Many members used their own infants to demonstrate the proper position. Lastly, techniques for dressing baby for sleep were presented. Both summer and winter attire were demonstrated using the baby doll toy. A discussion of the safety concerns regarding overdressing followed. The members were then directed back to resources, where they were asked to identify a resource available to them. To wrap up the session, this author used empowerment techniques to motivate the women to change their infant’s sleeping behaviors.
Evaluation of Teaching Experience Initially, the group held some reservation against having a pamphlet presented to them. The women mentioned that they were used to