Durham Infancy & Sleep Centre

PhD student Ingrid Boedker from Liverpool John Moores Uni, who is affiliated with DISC and externally supervised by DISC director Prof Helen Ball, explains her PhD on cosleeping and touch in the 3-minute thesis competition! Great job Ingrid!

Ingrid Boedker 3MT: Infant sleeping location and touch-mediated mother-infant outcomes Ingrid Boedker, Psychology, Three Minute Thesis (3MT). 'Infant sleeping location and touch-mediated mother-infant outcomes: Liverpool night-time caregiving s...

Slowly, sometimes imperceptibly, change happens..

There Are Safer Ways to Bed-Share with a Baby For some parents, bed-sharing is the only way their baby can sleep. Rather than talking to parents about how to do it safely, we try to pretend it doesn’t exist

A busy, but good weekend in Glasgow talking about infant sleep at International Paediatric Sleep Association conference. Pictured are our symposium speakers Levita D'Souza Elaine Barry Perran Boran Ezgi Aksu Sarah Honaker and my co-char Sarah Blunden.

We are pleased to offer an internship with DISC to a Durham University widening participation applicant this summer. See below for more details.
https://careers.dur.ac.uk/unauth?leap=true¤tUserLocale=en_GB
Durham University Anthropology
Durham University
Durham Anthropology Society

This morning we are pleased to share a new paper by DISC-affiliated PhD student Ingrid Boedker (Liverpool John Moore Uni) who has developed a scale for assessing parental views on infant sleep as part of her doctoral work: Construction of the Views oN Infant Sleep (VNIS) Questionnaire. We hope it will be useful to others working in this field.

www.sciencedirect.com

For UK Safer Sleep Week 2024 three members of our team have been blogging about their research on baby sleep here at the Durham Infancy & Sleep Centre Durham University Anthropology

Safer Sleep Week: SIDS, SUDI, and Applied Anthropology - Anthro-Scene By Sophie Lovell-Kennedy, Sarah Turner and Lenka Medvecová Tinková ~ This week, the 11th – 17th of March, is Safer Sleep Week in the UK. Safer Sleep Week is a national awareness campaign run by The Lullaby Trust that raises awareness of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS, and Sudden Unexpected...

Final year Durham University Anthropology undergrad Liv Moir is seeking participants for her dissertation research project. Please see details at link below if you are interested in taking part. https://forms.office.com/e/bw0yFW5GvL?origin=lprLink

Event Booking Details Normal Infant Sleep: Thursday 1st February to Thursday 29th February, Online discussion 29th February 6-7pm (GMT)SIDS & Sleep Safety: Thursday 1st February to Thursday 29th February, Online discussion 29th February 7-8pm (GMT)

Please be aware of unsafe baby sleep products. If you know anyone who has bought or receives one of these as a gift please encourage them to bin it!

❗ Product Safety Recall – Baby Knitted Swaddle Sleep Bag supplied by Amazon ❗

Office for Product Safety and Standards has issued notice of the urgent recall of the above product. If used as directed on the Amazon website, the sleep bag presents a serious risk of suffocation, overheating and death. The design of the product allows the baby to slip below the covers causing overheating and potentially airway obstruction, both of which have been associated with sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

For more information including brands affected visit: http://tinyurl.com/4ywe8sd6.

NHS safe sleep advice for babies can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/5n7nxw7x.

Dr. Thuy-vy Nguyen and Dr Delali Konu from the Durham University Psychology Department are seeking first-time mums with children under 3 to take part in a developmental research project. Details in poster and QR code below.

The Lullaby Trust are fundraising during the Big Give for funds to provide Bedtime Bundles to families living in emergency
situations and temporary accommodation, who are at greater risk of sudden infant death, with essential safer sleep items for their baby. Each bundle will contain a travel cot, baby sleeping bag, thermometer and advice leaflets. https://bit.ly/lullabybiggive23

The Big Give Christmas Challenge is the UK's biggest matched funding campaign and from now until midday on Tuesday 5th December, while funds last, donations made to The Lullaby Trust via the Big Give website will be doubled, for free, meaning they will make twice the difference.

They need to raise £35,044 in the next 7 days, which will be doubled to £70,088, to ensure that they can deliver the Bedtime Bundles project in 2024. Please consider donating and sharing if you can.

Bedtime Bundles: keep babies safe this Christmas Families living in deprivation are 23% more at risk of infant deaths. Many do not have a safe sleep space for their baby, which is a leading cause of infant mortality. We will provide a safer sleep bundle (travel cot, baby sleeping bag, thermometer and advice leaflets) to UK families in crisis.…

Fantastic first morning at with Baby Sleep Info Source - Basis. We are at stand 5 if you want to come and say hi! Durham University Anthropology

Yesterday's Festival of Social Science sponsored discussion of parents' questions re. Baby Sleep is now available to view on the Durham Infancy & Sleep Centre youtube channel. Many thanks to our panellists for giving up their time to answer questions, and to everyone who attended, suggested topics, and voted on the top questions for us to tackle. https://youtu.be/nhLcXHwgBu4?si=wXvIg1zjcZkMa1ND

Our Festival of Social Science Event 'Ask an Expert about Baby Sleep' is coming up soon on Tue November 7th at 7pm. Here we introduce our lovely panel. The event is free and you can register to join us at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ask-an-expert-your-top-baby-sleep-questions-answered-tickets-728207948577

Another of our undergraduate students is seeking participants for their research into mother-baby feeding and sleeping practices. Please complete Liv's expression of interest form if you are willing to take part. https://forms.office.com/e/n3LR8x5zwg?origin=lprLink and please share with anyone relevant 🙂 **Update - Liv has changed her EOI criteria to include online interviews beyond Durham **

*Submission of questions closes 31/10/23. Sign up and submit your questions to be voted on!*

Ask an Expert about Baby Sleep -- our FREE 2023 Festival of Social Science event is now open! There are 4 steps:
a) sign up for the event
b) submit your top 3 Baby Sleep questions
c) vote to select the top 10 questions for the expert panel
d) join us live on 7/11 at 7pm to share thoughts and discuss answers!
Event will be recorded for registrants who can't join on the night. Sign up now!! https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/.../ask-an-expert-your-top...

Ask an Expert about Baby Sleep -- our FREE 2023 Festival of Social Science event is now open! There are 4 steps:
a) sign up for the event
b) submit your top 3 Baby Sleep questions
c) vote to select the top 10 questions for the expert panel
d) join us live on 7/11 at 7pm to share thoughts and discuss answers!
Prof Helen Ball will Chair the panel. Experts will be revealed over the coming weeks 🙂 Event will be recorded for registrants who can't join on the night. Sign up now!! https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ask-an-expert-your-top-baby-sleep-questions-answered-tickets-728207948577?aff=oddtdtcreator
Durham University Anthropology Durham University

Durham undergraduate Hannah is doing her research dissertation on infant carrying. We are sharing this survey on her behalf. Please share with anyone who maybe willing to take part.

Hello! The purpose of this survey is to gain an understanding of the knowledge and experiences of mothers breastfeeding and the effect of physical contact. It is conducted by myself, Hannah Whitfield a 3rd year Anthropology student. You must be a mother of an infant (a child aged one year or under) to participate. Data is anonymous, but you will be asked whether you are interested in taking part in an interview later on in the year.

The link to the survey is: https://forms.office.com/e/78drC6RRJU

Thank you for considering taking part!

The Durham Infancy & Sleep Centre team have had a busy year, and our Baby Sleep Info Source - Basis Infant Sleep Webinars have had to take a bit of a back seat. Now that our big research projects are all done we will be updating the webinars for 23-24, so we are offering the old packages at the old price for one last time this summer. Catch it while you can! To register see: https://pay.durham.ac.uk/event-durham/baby-sleep-info-source-basis-infant-sleep-webinars-2023

New led by Professor Helen Ball, from Durham’s Infancy and Sleep Centre, makes recommendations on how to implement a multi-agency approach for the prevention of sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI).

Published in the journal BMJ Public Health, the research examines how local authorities address multi-agency prevention and finds significant variations in policy and approaches across England’s local authorities and safeguarding partnerships.

The research underpins the recently-launched ‘Eyes on the Baby’ report, which sets out 12 key recommendations for implementing multi-agency SUDI prevention.

Find out more 👉 https://fal.cn/3AcE3

Baby Sleep Info Source - Basis Durham Infancy & Sleep Centre The Lullaby Trust Durham County Council Durham University Anthropology

DISC Director Prof Helen Ball with PhD student Ingrid Boedker at World Association for Infant Mental Health conference in Dublin this week. Behind us is Ingrid’s poster on the first phase of her PhD research.

This is what we've been working on for the past 16 months -- a multi-agency SUDI prevention programme, co-produced with Durham County Council and NHS staff. The report can be downloaded from the project website at www.eyesonthebaby.org.uk

A baby sleeping bag is a good option when co-sleeping because all adult bedding (pillows, duvets, etc) should be kept well away from your baby.
-
ADULTS: Keep your duvet away from your baby and wear an extra layer of clothing if you get cold.
-
BABIES: Lie them on their back in a clear part of the bed, away from the edge. Baby sleep bags should be well-fitted (check the manufacturer’s instructions) so they can’t wriggle down inside.

43% of families we spoke to didn’t talk to a health professional about co-sleeping. Even if you don’t intend to co-sleep, it’s vital to get informed as the majority of families will co-sleep with their baby at least once. That’s why we’re talking about co-sleeping this Safer Sleep Week.
-
Keep an eye on our content this week for information on how to prepare your bed for co-sleeping and the situations that make co-sleeping especially risky. (But if you can’t wait that long, you can have a sneaky peek at our co-sleeping info page!) https://bit.ly/3IYZcXK

New review published today on the relationship between swaddling and breastfeeding. This was part of the preliminary work Allison did for her PhD thesis https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajhb.23878