Health director urges stepped-up safe-sleep education after local child-fatality review

Anna Cook, the county health director, updated the board on findings from the local child fatality review team for 2025 and said the team's primary recommendation is more intensive safe-sleep education.

Cook said that, while congenital disorders appeared among reviewed cases, the most frequent and concerning pattern was unsafe sleep practices: "There was more unsafe sleep deaths that we saw...so one thing that came out of the meetings was recommendations of what we could do, and that's just to increase safe sleep education." She described renewed emphasis on messages such as placing babies on their backs and keeping cribs clear of other items, and noted the department has distributed car seats, pack-and-plays and sleep sacks in prior programs.

Cook told the board the child-fatality team used statutorily required meetings to review deaths and that health-department oversight of the local team is now in place after a departmental shift in responsibility. No formal policy changes were proposed at the meeting; staff presented the recommendations as education and outreach priorities to reduce unsafe-sleep deaths.

The board did not propose additional action during the meeting; staff indicated they will pursue increased safe-sleep education and community outreach.