Doctors question safety of letting babies sleep in cardboard boxes

As part of an effort to reduce sudden infant death syndrome in the United States, more than 300,000 infants could sleep in cardboard boxes before year’s end if all goes as planned.

That idea doesn’t rest well with prominent doctors, researchers and organizations focused on SIDS who say the boxes are untested and unregulated. The Baby Box Co. maintains its box is as safe as any crib. And the doctors and public health professionals who work with the Los Angeles-based company echo that view.

They say its low cost and educational component make the product promising in states where it’s offered for free, including New Jersey, Ohio and Alabama.

About 3,500 infants die each year in the U.S. from sleep-related causes, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, whose Task Force on SIDS says enthusiasm about baby boxes has outpaced knowledge about them.

“I don’t think that we can be gungho, let’s do baby boxes,” said Dr. Rachel Moon, a University of Virginia pediatrician who leads the task force. “Because the evidence just isn’t there.”

In Finland, which has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world, every expectant mother receiving a prenatal checkup can get a box filled with baby necessities such as blankets and clothing free of charge.

The Baby Box Co. says it was “born from” this tradition, but in the U.S., parents complete a video-based course about safe sleep on the company’s website before receiving their box.

Baby Box CEO Jennifer Clary said the boxes have been tested for bassinet standards, even though the product doesn’t meet the technical definition of one.

“We do comply to the fullest extent that we can,” she said. But as long as the boxes are holding babies, doctors like Thomas Hegyi, medical director of the SIDS Center of New Jersey, say they will want to know more.

“I hope it comes out that it’s effective and safe. It’s easy to be supportive of this,” he said.