State requires 'baby on back'
Posted: 06.18.2011 at 5:10 PM
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ST. LOUIS, MO (AP) -- Fifteen years after national advocates recommended putting babies on their backs to sleep, Missouri is planning to require licensed child-care facilities to follow the advice.
     
The American Academy of Pediatrics says putting babies on their backs to sleep prevents sudden infant death syndrome and accidental suffocation.
     
Lori Behrens, executive director of SIDS Resources of Missouri, says having the state requirement will allow advocates to educate child-care providers, especially home-care providers.
     
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the state will also begin requiring that at least one staff member trained in CPR be on
duty at all times in licensed centers and licensed home day cares.
     
The "back-to-sleep" rule is expected to go into effect by late summer and the CPR regulation by January 1.

(Copyright ©2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)