Highlights
- •NSP is prevalent today due to supine sleep recommendation for infant safety.
- •Child health nurses have a golden opportunity to help prevent NSP.
- •Parents are receptive to information from their child health nurse.
Acquired cranial asymmetry is prevalent in infants today. This is largely attributed
to the supine sleep position recommended for infant safety. The condition can become
permanent, so prevention and early detection are important. A prevention project was
initiated where guidelines for Swedish child health nurses were developed, tested
in a pilot study, revised, and then incorporated into a short cranial asymmetry prevention
program for nurses. The program included detailed information on what to teach parents
of newborns. An intervention study was initiated where one group of nurses was taught
according to the program and the other group followed the standard recommendations.
The aim of this survey was to compare intervention and control group parents’ responses
regarding the cranial asymmetry prevention information that they had received from
their nurses during their infant’s first four months. Participants included 272 parents
(180 intervention group, 92 control group) at 26 child health centers. A checklist
was distributed to parents in conjunction with infants’ four month health checkup.
A significantly higher percentage of intervention group parents were aware of regular
recommendations – alternate direction of the infant’s head when putting the child
to bed (82%: 64%, p = 0.001), which pillow to use (92%: 80%, p = 0.01), and when to remove the pillow (48%: 31%, p = 0.006) – and five newly introduced recommendations compared to controls. Results indicate
that educating child health nurses on prevention of cranial asymmetry works to increase
parental awareness of what to do and how to do it safely.
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 26, 2016
Accepted:
December 18,
2015
Received in revised form:
December 16,
2015
Received:
July 9,
2015
Footnotes
1All those entitled to authorship are listed as authors. All authors meet the criteria for authorship and have approved the final version of the manuscript. All authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
