Just Take a Walk?

Last spring, as I walked to a board meeting of the Community Loan Fund of the Capital Region on Orange Street in Albany, I passed a memorial to a young man who had been shot and killed a couple of days earlier. There was a huge collection of candles on the ground between two stoops, marked off by caution tape, and with a large crowd of mourners around it.

Across from that memorial, tacked to a telephone pole was a relatively recent cheerful green and white sign that designates this stretch of road as part of a get-fit walking trail, and exhorts the viewer to “grab someone and take a walk!” This walking route is a loop that extends up into Center Square.

What Is “Safe Sleeping”?

It was with great disappointment that I saw the new Albany County advertising campaign on “safe sleeping” for infants, which discourages bedsharing and repeat the old, inaccurate canard that “babies sleep safest alone.”

There are few things that are more emotional than an accidental infant death. I’m quite sure that all the people involved in this campaign are sincerely wanting to do what’s right and safe lives.

But that’s no excuse for an inaccurate campaign that is likely to harm more babies than it helps.

Babies Sleep Safest Where?

Well-intentioned public health campaigns against cosleeping may harm as many infants as they help—if not more.