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A sleeping pod for babies is being promoted as a response to Sudden Unexplained Death of Infants that takes into account not only culture but also risk factors like poverty.
It’s Safe Sleep Day, with a reminder that three in five of the 30 or so babies that die each year in New Zealand of SUDI are Maori.
Kathrine Clarke from national prevention group Whakawhetu says risk factors where action can be taken are smoking and bed sharing.
She says the housing crisis means many young families are living in crowded conditions.
"Many of our young mothers have a room that they share not only with pepe but also their other tamariki, so how you sleep the baby safely seems simple, you just get a cot, but if you haven’t got space for the cot, we need to think outside the square, and that’s why David Tipene Leach and Riripeti Haretuku spent a long time looking for solutions and they came across the wakakura and started to promote that," she says.
Ms Clarke says in some areas there are ante-natal programmes where the mothers and their sisters and nannies can weave a wahakura, while in other areas district health boards pay for the sleeping pods to be made.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH KATHERINE CLARKE CLICK ON THE LINK
https://secure.zeald.com/uma/play_podcast?podlink=MjQ3MjU=
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