Source: Hapai Te Hauora
Hāpai Te Hauora is set to launch Foundations for Safe Sleep – a national milestone for SUDI prevention – at Te Oro in Glen Innes on Friday 5 December, 10am-12pm. The refreshed messaging has been informed using whānau insights and developed alongside clinicians, researchers, blending mātauranga Māori with evidence-based practice to strengthen consistency and trust in safe sleep messaging.
Every year, around 50 pēpi die from SUDI in Aotearoa. Māori babies are still the most affected, with rates far higher than for non-Māori. For more than a decade, the P.E.P.E. framework has provided a strong evidence base for safe sleep, but whānau told us it often felt clinical, disconnected, and not reflective of their real life.
In response, Hāpai worked alongside whānau through regional wānanga in Northland, Auckland, Tauranga and Gisborne to co-design messaging that feels practical, loving, and culturally grounded. The result is Foundations for Safe Sleep – four connected pillars that reflect real whānau life:
Face Up, Face Clear: Lay baby on their back with a clear face to protect their breathing. Sleeping them in their own bed like a wahakura, bassinet, or cot still keeps them close, but also safe.
Flat & Firm: Baby sleep safest on a flat, firm surface with firm sides made just for them. They don’t need pillows, toys, or loose blankets around them.
Free From Harm: Keep baby’s sleep space free. Free from smoke, vapes, alcohol, drugs, and harm and always handle baby with gentle hands. Free to breathe, free to flourish.
Partner & Family Support: safe sleep is a shared whānau responsibility and supporting māmā and pēpi to breastfeed adds protection against illness.
“Our aim was to create messaging that came from, and connected with whānau,” says Fay Selby-Law, National SUDI Lead. “It’s about practical care without fear or judgement. We want parents and caregivers to feel supported and confident, not shamed.”
The refreshed messaging takes a harm-reduction approach, less directive and recognising that support and information work better than prohibition.
“Safe sleep starts long before bedtime,” says Selby-Law, “It begins in pregnancy with knowledge for Mum and the whānau, connection, and shared responsibility, not just rules.”
