Hi, welcome back to my channel. I'm Dr. Miran Viercing, I'm an emergency medicine specialist here in the UK. And today we're going to be going through the top tips to keep your newborn baby safe. These are top tips that people actually don't talk about. They don't actually get told when they're new parents and this information that's now no longer actually being passed down but actually is available and is very important. So number one, always make sure that you keep your newborn baby sleeping on their back. There's no need to be putting them on their side or on their front to sleep. Now for tummy time that's absolutely fine but that should always be supervised. When a baby is going to sleep whether that's within the day or the night time, they should always be placed on their back to sleep. This will reduce the chance of what we call SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome. This was also previously known as COT death. Now I don't want you to be worried or scared because once your baby is old enough to roll on their own accord, then they can absolutely sleep on their side or their front as the baby chooses to because they have the strength and the ability to mobilize and roll themselves. But up until that point in those first few weeks months of life, you should always put them to sleep on their back. This is what the evidence has shown. Number two, make sure you never cover your baby's head when they're inside the house. It's okay to swaddle a baby but you should never cover their heads. Their head is actually where a baby regulates their heat. If you cover their heads with bedding or other sheets, the baby can actually overheat and that can increase the chance of SIDS. Obviously when you take your child outside and it's cold, then it's perfectly sensible and reasonable to cover their head. We're talking about in the situation when you put a baby to sleep within side of your property, their head should not be covered. The third thing is when a baby goes to sleep, the blankets should never come above their level of their shoulders or their neck. This is to prevent material overriding onto their mouth or nose which can then cause suffocation or which can cover their head which can then cause the baby to overheat as we've discussed before. So if you're using blankets, make sure you swaddle the baby and the blankets are tucked in nicely so they can't unfold or if you're using one of those baby blankets in which they already tuck under the armpits and they have buttons and zips, then they are absolutely safe as they naturally cannot ride up above the level of the neck or the shoulders and always place the baby feet end to the edge of the cot. This is because as the baby tries to wriggle or move, their head will be far enough away from the top end of the crib. That leaves enough space to prevent the baby's head and neck from flexing or twisting which can then lead to suffocation. With regards to using a mattress for a newborn, it should be firm, it should be flat and it should have a well-fitted sheet that can't lift up which could then potentially cover the baby's face. It's advised not to use any doofays, pillows, extra blankets, wedges, bedding, any of those kind of things. This again is to prevent your baby from getting too hot or potentially those materials covering the baby's face. So to check the temperature of a baby, you want to check on their chest or on their back. You don't want to be checking their hands or feet or head as this can give you a false perception of the temperature because some babies can have naturally cold hands or feet and that is not actually their true temperature. If your baby is feeling too hot, then absolutely remove the extra clothing or the layers that they have on. Also check the temperature of the room. The ideal temperature for baby is about 60 to 20 degrees Celsius. Baby should never be sleeping next to hot water bottles, electric blankets, fires or anything else on that nature. Once a baby has come in from outdoors to indoors, any hat or material that is covering their head or neck should immediately be removed to prevent your baby from overheating. This also pertains to situations such as entering a car, going on a train or going on a bus as because the environment is warmer. When you are outside in the natural air, then it's absolutely fine to cover the baby's head as so long as not warm outside. This next one can be quite controversial because the best advice is that you should not sleep next to your baby in those first few months of life. The NHS actually recommends that you do not sleep in the same bed as your baby for the first six months of life but you should have the baby sleeping in the same room as you but in their own crib or their own cot. The reason is because of the risk of cold sleeping, one could accidentally roll over onto their baby and accidentally suffocate them. There have been several cases of this that have happened and unfortunately that still continues to happen to this day. Now you might think how can a parent roll over their baby? Well this can happen when you're either extremely tired or in the unfortunate circumstances where parents have lacked capacity and this can happen if they've had alcohol or drugs within their system. And when we say drugs, we are talking about illicit drugs but also prescription medications that can increase drowsiness and that can sometimes lead to impaired capacity and then you may actually not know what you are doing and roll over and answer any suffocate. Your child tends to wipe if the child is placed in their own cot, the risk of that has completely gone. But it is advised to keep the child in the same room and that's because there's multiple different theories behind this. One of them is that it reduces the stress and anxiety levels in the newborn because they can sense and feel that parents are around. The other thing is it also allows you to keep a night on the child because you are right next to them so you are able to sense, hear, feel, smell, everything to do with the baby. So if something was to happen you'd be right next to them. It's also obviously advised not to smoke next to your newborn. This is just very obvious but unfortunately there's still many parents out there who will continue to smoke in front of their newborn. This can actually lead to very serious problems as well as serious medical conditions as the child gets older and becomes an adult. The biggest thing is babies that are exposed to cigarette smoke are at an increased risk of sins. The next thing is there's a lot of questions about how much should I feed my baby. Now if they're breastfed the baby will tell you how much they want to feed and they will automatically stop themselves. They have a good automatic process that regulates themselves. If you are formula feeding your baby some babies may have more or less than compared to what is prescribed on the carton of the formula feeds. So always check the formula feed amount that you should be giving and give according to that. Your baby will tell you and they do not want to have any more and that's the point in that way you stop. Never leave your baby unattended with a bottle lifted up to their mouth using some sort of contraptions because we have seen that in the past and it has forced babies to overfeed and some babies have actually forced the fluid to go into their lungs because it's been left like that. Always make sure you sterilize the equipment for feeding your baby. There are many different types of equipment and different devices out there for sterilizing so always follow the instructions and do it correctly. Always wash your hands. Your hands are a classic source of bacteria passing that onto your newborn. Now newborns don't have a fully robust immune system at the moment and it will develop over time. They do have some immunity which is passed down from the mother through the placenta and there is immunity that is passed through the breast milk but they are obviously not as strong in their immune system as a younger child or as an adult. If you have used formula feed do not use that same feed later on to feed the child. Always make a fresh feed. That's because that formula feed can harbor bacteria if it's left out and not used immediately. Therefore always throw it away otherwise you could risk your child getting a serious infection. Never heat milk or formula feeds within a microwave. This is because certain parts are heated more than others and therefore you can get some parts of the milk which are excessively hot other parts of chastel cold. Even if you mix it this can cause serious burns within the child's mouth and I have seen several of these cases and still continue to see several of these cases every year within the A&E. So I hope that was informative. I don't want you to be worried. This is just simple sensible advice which I think most of you already know and those of you that didn't know will now be fully informed. You can pass this information on to your friends and family and colleagues. So I hope that was informative and I want to see you all in the next video. So just remember to like, share and subscribe and I'll see you all next time. Thank you so much.