Buy a crib for a child in need • Please consider making a donation of a crib to a family in need. For more information about our online campaign, click here.

In New York City many advances have been made in reducing some of the risks and barriers to good health for mothers and babies. However, in many NYC neighborhoods, babies are dying because of unsafe sleeping situations. Although the number of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) deaths has fallen dramatically in NYC, in the past 5 years, 60% of unintentional injury deaths were due to suffocation and over half of those deaths were due to an unsafe sleep environment-either sharing a bed with an adult and/or child, sleeping on a couch, and soft bedding. Babies that are most often affected by suffocation are born to low income families who cannot afford to protect their infants because they do not have access to a safe crib.

These alarming statistics led the NYC Department of Health to become a partner of the national Cribs for Kids program in 2007, which provides safe sleep education and a portable crib to high risk families without a safe space for babies to sleep. The NYC Cribs for Kids program has distributed over 1,600 cribs through the Newborn Home Visiting Program and the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) in East and Central Harlem, North and Central Brooklyn and the South Bronx and NFP sites in targeted communities in all five boroughs, as well as to NFP clients in foster care, homeless shelters, and Riker's Island jail.

As the Newborn Home Visiting and NFP programs continue to grow, so has the demand for cribs and safe sleep education. So far, the Health Department has only been able to scratch the surface of the families in need of safe sleep education and a crib. We have launched an online fundraiser to increase the number of cribs available for families in need. Please consider making a donation of a crib to a family in need. For more information about our online campaign, click here.