Perinatal Services BC have put together the Honouring Our Babies Safer Sleep Toolkit: Facilitator Guide and Cards 3rd Edition 2023, including important information and recommendations on how to facilitate conversations with Indigenous parents/caregivers on safer sleep options. It encourages informed shared decision making on safer sleep with a focus on the strengths of Indigenous knowledge, cultural values and practices using a two-eyed seeing approach.
The refreshed toolkit has a number of updates and key alignments:
- It was informed by Indigenous family members, Elders, and a variety of health-care providers including midwives, registered nurses, birth workers and Doulas.
- It is an update from the Honouring Our Babies: Safe Sleep Cards: Facilitator Guide 2017.
- It aligns with PSBC's Safer Infant Sleep resource, which was updated in 2022.
- It aligns with best practice recommendations and current clinical guidelines.
- It provides key messages for infants at increased risk of sleep-related infant death.
- It consists of 21 illustrated cards, four of which have been newly developed, and a facilitator's guide.