Auxiliary Funds The Period of Purple Crying Program
- March 27, 2017
Brookings Healthcare Auxiliary is continuing to fund The Period of Purple Crying, a program offered at Brookings Health System designed to help prevent shaken baby syndrome.
Crying for no apparent reason can happen often during a baby’s first five months of life. An infant’s cries can frustrate parents and care givers. According to the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome, frustration with a baby’s crying is the number one trigger for shaken baby syndrome.
“Although no parent likes to hear their baby cry, crying is a natural and normal part of infant development. This program is based on more than 25 years of research and is designed to help parents through this difficult time and understand the dangers of shaking a baby,” said Obstetrics Director Mary Schwaegerl.
The Period of Purple Crying provides support, education and information to a newborn’s parents and care givers on regular crying spells. Along with providing parents and care givers soothing tips, the program stresses that sometimes there is nothing a parent or care giver can do to calm a newborn’s cries. And, because a healthy newborn may cry anywhere from 45 minutes to five hours on a regular basis during the first five months, it works to educate parents on what to do if or when they become frustrated.
Brookings Healthcare Auxiliary began funding the program at Brookings Health System since its start in 2013. The Auxiliary’s recent donation will continue to help provide the DVD and booklet as a free gift to all new parents who deliver at Brookings Health System’s OB unit, New Beginnings Birth Center.
New Beginnings Birth Center is an eight-bed OB unit with five labor, delivery, recovery and postpartum (LDRP) rooms, four postpartum recovery rooms and triage. The unit provides full OB services to expectant parents and enables area residents to deliver their baby close to home with a local physician. To learn more about this and other educational programs New Beginnings Birth Center provides to new parents, visit www.brookingshealth.org/OB.
About Brookings Health System
Brookings Health System, located in Brookings, South Dakota, includes a 49-bed hospital, the 79-bed The Neighborhoods at Brookview nursing home, Brookhaven Estates senior living apartments, Yorkshire Eye Clinic, and medical clinics in Arlington, White and Volga, South Dakota. It is a non-profit, city-owned facility that offers the community a full range of inpatient, outpatient, surgical and extended care services. The emergency room is staffed 24 hours a day and provides around the clock patient needs ranging from minor injuries to life threatening crises. For more information about the services offered at Brookings Health System, please call (605) 696-9000 or visit us on the Web at brookingshealth.org.