PURPLE in North America

State-wide and Region-wide Implementation

North Carolina, USA
This initiative is funded to provide the statewide implementation of the Period of PURPLE Crying Program for the prevention of inflicted traumatic brain injury among infants (SBS) in the state of North Carolina.

The program is a universal prevention program and will be provided to approximately 125,000 families of new babies born in North Carolina from 2007 - 2011. The project represents a unique collaboration of university, private non-profit, government and military systems. The donors to the project include the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; Duke Endowment, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The partners implementing and researching this initiative include the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome (AHT), the University of North Carolina Department o Social Medicine and Injury Prevention Research Center and the Center for Child and Family Health. The principal investigator for the study is Desmond K. Runyan, MD, Dr.P.H., Professor and Chair of Social Medicine, Professor of Pediatrics, Clinical Professor of Epidemiology, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Co-Investigators include: Ronald G. Barr, MA, MDCDM, FRCPC, Canada Research Chair in Community Child Health Research; Director, Centre for Community Child Health Research, Child and Family Research Institute; Professor of Pediatrics, UBC Faculty of Medicine; Marilyn Barr, Founder and Executive Director, National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome (AHT), and Robert A. Murphy, PhD, Executive Director, Center for Child & Family Health, North Carolina.

The study will build upon two, 3 year, randomized controlled trials completed in the state of Washington, USA and the province of British Columbia, Canada which tested the effectiveness of the Period of PURPLE Crying materials to change knowledge, attitude and behaviour of the parents who received them. The new study will test the program to determine if it can now reduce the incidence of shaken baby syndrome in the state of North Carolina.

Utah, USA
Utah is the first state in the United States to implement the Period of PURPLE Crying in each of its own state's birthing hospitals. Since August 2007, a total of 1,669 maternity nurses participated in comprehensive training sessions. By June 2008, all 39 Utah birthing hospitals serving parents of ~55,000 infants a year had implemented the program. Labor and delivery nurses, discharge nurses, education coordinators and women center directors at each hospital completed training on the ideal delivery protocol.

The feedback from hospital staff indicates overwhelming support for this change in practice as far too many have seen first-hand the traumatic consequences to the victims and families of SBS/AHT (Shaken Baby Syndrome/Abusive Head Trauma). They celebrated the unique prevention program characteristics in that the Period of PURPLE Crying is a prescribed and tested program that has been validated by randomized controlled trials, is acceptable to public health nurses, easy for parents to understand, economical and has a positive message for parents.

Many of these nurses have had their own experiences with inconsolable crying babies and commented, "I wish I had this information when I had my baby," and "even though I am a nurse I was so discouraged about my inconsolable crying infant, I thought I was doing something wrong."

During a training session with Davis Hospital staff, Karla Johnson, the Education and Quality Resource Director said, "I love the content and the message. It's so different from the prevention programs we have used in the past. This message is proactive compared to the 'scare tactics' used in other programs."

"Heber Valley Hospital stopped showing the Elijah's Story video because it was too sad for new moms to understand and watch; the Period of PURPLE Crying educates and allows new parents to understand the crying characteristics as normal infant development. Kathy Coleman, OB Coordinator at Heber Valley Hospital, shared these comments with the NCSBS Hospital-Based Coordinator.

Since the beginning of the PURPLE rollout, hospital staff have welcomed the program and felt encouraged about the message they deliver to parents; when your baby is going through a long bout of crying, it is ok to put him/her in a safe place and walk away for a few minutes. After a break, you will be better able to soothe the baby. This is difficult when the frustration from unsoothable crying is reaching or has reached a threshold.

NCSBS is proud to share the program with parents, professionals and the community. Introducing and implementing PURPLE into Utah hospitals has been funded through generous donations from seventeen foundations, some of these include:

George S. and Dolores Dor Eccles Foundation
Stephen G. and Susan E. Denkers Family Foundation
Larry H. Miller Charities
Willard L. Eccles Foundation
Rite Aid Foundation


[Return to top]

Categories :