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Infant Safe Sleep Practices as Portrayed on Instagram: Observational Study
Samuel Chin1, Rebecca Carlin2, Anita Mathews3
1Department of Pediatrics, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA, United States.
JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting
|November 15, 2021
Summary
Most Instagram images of infant sleep contradict safe sleep guidelines. The number of likes did not correlate with adherence to American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendations, highlighting potential risks for new parents.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric sleep safety
- Social media impact on health behaviors
- Parental education and risk communication
Background:
- Parenting practices are significantly shaped by perceived social norms.
- Social norms regarding infant sleep often conflict with American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) guidelines.
- Instagram is a highly popular platform among expectant and new parents, influencing their perceptions.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the degree to which Instagram images of infant sleep and sleep environments align with AAP safe sleep guidelines.
- To identify common deviations from safe sleep recommendations in popular social media content.
- To investigate the relationship between image popularity (likes) and adherence to safe sleep guidelines.
Main Methods:
- Instagram was searched using relevant infant sleep hashtags.
- An open-source web scraper collected images and like counts for 27 hashtags.
- Images were systematically analyzed for compliance with AAP safe sleep guidelines.
Main Results:
- Out of 1563 analyzed images, only 7.49% (117) adhered to AAP safe sleep guidelines.
- The most frequent deviations included the presence of bedding (75.05%) and non-recommended sleep positions (42.24%).
- Image 'likes' showed no correlation with adherence to safe sleep recommendations.
Conclusions:
- The pervasive display of unsafe infant sleep practices on Instagram may normalize these behaviors for young parents.
- Social media content, despite potential user inexperience with depicted practices, can significantly influence parental decision-making.
- There is a critical need to bridge the gap between social media portrayals and evidence-based infant safe sleep recommendations.
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