INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Department of Health is urging parents to take steps to protect their infants following a surge this month of deaths caused by unsafe sleep environments.

The state has been alerted to more than 10 infant deaths related to unsafe sleep in August.

Indiana typically averages two such cases a week over the course of a year. Suffocation caused by unsafe sleep environments is the third leading cause of death for all Indiana infants.

Unsafe situations often involve co-sleeping with an adult (such as in a bed), blankets and pillows in the baby’s crib, or the baby being placed on his or her stomach to sleep.

In Indiana between 2015-2019, 36% of unsafe sleep deaths occurred during naptime, so it’s essential to sleep in a safe place every time.

“I can’t stress enough how important it is to place babies in a safe sleep environment,” said State Health Commissioner Lindsay Weaver, M.D., FACEP. “These tragic deaths are preventable and can have a profound impact on communities.”

Babies should be placed to sleep following the ABCs of safe sleep:

• Alone: Babies should be placed alone with caregiver nearby in the same room.
• Back: On his or her back.
• Crib: With only a tight-fitting sheet, no bumper pads, pillows, blankets or stuffed animals. Never place a baby to sleep on a couch, chair, air mattress, or other soft surface. Do not let the baby sleep in a baby swing or bouncer. Adults, siblings, and animals should not sleep with the baby.

Other precautions to ensure babies have a safe environment include having a breastfeeding and safe sleep plan.

IDOH is working with the Department of Child Services and other partners across the state to increase awareness about safe sleep.

More information and resources about safe sleep is available on the IDOH website.

In June, IDOH released a provisional statewide 2024 infant mortality rate of 6.3 deaths per 1,000 live births, a decrease from 6.6 in 2023. Infant mortality is the death of a child before his or her first birthday and is measured by the number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births.

Visit the Indiana Department of Health at www.health.in.gov for important health and safety information or follow us on X at @StateHealthIN and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/StateHealthIN.

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INDIANAPOLIS — Beginning Oct. 1, 2023, the Indiana Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program contracted formula brand will transition from Gerber products to Enfamil products for infant formula issued to WIC participants.

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INDIANAPOLIS -- A proposal just one step away from Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb’s desk could get infants surrendered under the state’s safe haven laws to adoptive families more quickly.

But some lawmakers fear its provisions could violate the rights of regretful or unaware biological parents. New anti-vaccine provisions also snarled debate.

“This is probably the best thing that we have ever done,” said bill author Travis Holdman, R-Markle, of Indiana’s 20-year-old safe haven law.

He told lawmakers earlier this month that it saves infants and can help desperate biological parents.

The law allows people to give up unwanted infants anonymously – as long as there are no signs of abuse – and lays out procedures for safe surrenders and legal custodies.

Shift emphasizes outside agencies, adoptions

Holdman’s Senate Bill 345 defines a safe haven infant as one 30 days old or younger and who’s been voluntarily left by a parent with an emergency medical services provider or in a newborn safety device often called a baby box.

The Department of Child Services has taken surrendered infants into custody for the last two decades. The legislation would let licensed child-placing agencies do the same.

“DCS, it sort of gets bogged down in the bureaucracy,” Holdman told the Capital Chronicle. “I believe it’s just another opportunity for a licensed child-placing agency to stand in the place of DCS, and just to provide more options for those families that are interested in adopting infants.”

Holdman’s proposal attempts to skip foster placements in favor of adoption. It tasks the outside agencies with placing infants into pre-approved adoptive homes “without unnecessary delay.”

DCS had one infant in its custody for a whopping 22 months, the bill’s House sponsor — Joanna King, R-Middlebury — said on the floor this month.

She said getting placing agencies involved could get children “placed with their forever famil(ies) much sooner.”

The goal is to “minimize the number of moves that a child’s going to have. We want to provide security as soon as possible,” Adoptions of Indiana leader Meg Sterchi told lawmakers at a hearing.

That placement doesn’t mean biological parents can’t return and assert their rights, she said.

But the legislation does make it easier and faster to eliminate those rights.

Fights over parental rights

Senate Bill 345 requires DCS and the outside agencies to file petitions — within 15 days of taking custody — to terminate the legal relationship between surrendered infants and their biological parents.

The proposal lays out what that petition should include and how to give public notice on it, so that parents who regret the surrender or didn’t know of the infant can take the child back.

But if they don’t respond to the public notices or ask for custody within 28 days, the legislation says they’re “irrevocably” implying consent to the ending of their parental rights.

Multiple lawmakers of both parties — most of them lawyers by trade — said the time period was too short, and that biological parents should get more opportunity to go to court.

Sen. Susan Glick, R-LaGrange, noted in a hearing last month that it’s an “irreversible decision to terminate parental rights.” Later, she expressed concern for fathers who don’t know of their children.

“We’re talking [less than] 30 days for them to discover that they have a child and come forward without any more information than ‘Baby Boy X has been surrendered,'” Glick said.

Adoptions of Indiana’s Sterchi countered that fathers have the entire nine months of the pregnancy in addition to the proposed time period.

“Having sex with a woman is notice enough that there could be a pregnancy,” Sterchi said. “… There has to be some responsibility on the part of the father to engage.”

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The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to giving Hoosiers a comprehensive look inside state government, policy and elections. The site combines daily coverage with in-depth scrutiny, political awareness and insightful commentary.

You can read the original version of the story here.

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