Implementing a Hospital-Based Safe Sleep Program for Newborns and Infants.

Background: An unsafe sleep environment remains the leading contributor to unexpected infant death.

Purpose: To determine the effectiveness of a quality improvement initiative developed to create a hospital-based safe sleep environment for all newborns and infants.

Methods: A multidisciplinary team from the well-baby nursery (WBN) and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of a 149-bed academic, quaternary care, regional referral center developed and implemented safe sleep environments within the hospital for all prior to discharge.

Transfusion-related acute gut injury: necrotizing enterocolitis in very low birth weight neonates after packed red blood cell transfusion.

Objective: This is a repeat cohort study in which we sought to determine whether an association of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) <48 hours of a packed red blood cells (PRBC) transfusion was a prior sampling artifact.

Study Design: All very low birth weight neonates with NEC Stage ≥ IIB admitted over an 18-month period were categorized for NEC: (1) <48 hours after a PRBC transfusion; (2) unrelated to the timing of PRBCs; and (3) never transfused.

Results: Eight hundred eighty-three admissions over 18 months were reviewed; 256 were very low birth weight that resulted in 36 NEC cases and 25% were associated with PRBC (n = 9).