NEW YORK – Assemblymember Aravella Simotas announced that the New York State Assembly passed her bill to establish the “Newborn Health and Safety Pilot Program” also known as the “baby box bill” (A6044). The goal of the legislation is to reduce infant mortality in New York by having the state Health Department distribute a safe, portable sleep space – literally baby boxes – for infants six months and younger, in areas of the state with the greatest infant mortality rates. The bill is Simotas’ fifth to be passed this week by the Assembly.
“This is a low-tech, inexpensive, yet highly effective way to save babies’ lives,” said Assemblymember Simotas.
The baby boxes and similar apparatus are meant to discourage high-risk behaviors on the part of parents that are associated with Sudden Unexpected Infant Death (SUID). They are designed according to the safe infant sleep guidelines of the Academy of Pediatrics and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Each baby box has a firm mattress with a fitted sheet.
The boxes will provide essential baby care items and educational information for new parents on the dangers of co-sleeping and the risks when blankets, pillows, stuffed animals, and loose bedding is used with sleeping infants. Many parents of newborns have no idea that these seemingly innocent items put a sleeping baby at risk.
“We cannot ignore the reality for some new families where sleep deprivation and exhaustion, coupled with lack of money to afford a crib, means their babies are put to sleep in risky ways,” Assemblymember Simotas said.
The use of baby boxes began in Finland in the 1930’s and has recently gained new attention, with baby box projects underway in South Africa, South Asia, London, Canada, Australia, San Antonio and Fort Worth, TX, and Philadelphia, PA. Most recently, New Jersey received a grant from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and they are the first state to offer baby boxes to all parents.
The bill specifies that the state Health Department will monitor the program and within one year provide a report to the legislature on the program’s effectiveness.
“The baby box bill advances our state’s commitment to support healthy parenting and reduce health disparities across different demographic groups,” Simotas said. She noted that in 2015, the state adopted her legislation to designate pregnancy as a “qualifying life event” for the purposes of health insurance enrollment, which now guarantees access to vital prenatal care.
The baby box bill passed the Assembly on June 20 and also passed the New York State Senate, where it was sponsored by Senator Kemp Hannon of Nassau County. The bill will now be sent to the governor to be signed into law.
Four important bills Simotas sponsored as Chair of the Administrative Regulations Review Commission were passed as well that: 1) help New York’s small and independent businesses by making it easier for them to comply with regulations and avoid common violations; and 2) increase transparency and public participation in agency rulemaking.
“As the daughter of a small business owner, I know first-hand how vital small businesses are to the economic health of our communities and our state. My bills will help to create a healthier environment in New York for small business and to ensure that regulatory agencies are more user-friendly,” said Assemblymember Simotas.
According to Simotas, one of the bills helps small businesses to comply with regulations by requiring state agencies to create plain language regulation guides that would include information on 1) the most common regulatory violations that small businesses are cited for by the agency and 2) actions that small businesses can take to minimize or prevent the occurrence of violations. The bill also authorizes the division of small business to monitor agency enforcement actions against small business to prevent the misuse of enforcement quotas and monetary penalties as a revenue stream.
A second bill to make business and public participation in government rulemaking easier extends to a minimum of 60 days the time to review and comment on proposed rules, rather than only 45 days which is the current mandate for many state agencies.
A third bill, the Electronic Distribution of Rule Making Information Act is a long overdue remedy that will bring agency rulemaking into the 21st century and make it easier for the public to follow agency actions. Currently, an agency is only required to “snail mail” rulemaking notices to people or companies who send them a written request and the written request has to be renewed each year. The Simotas bill will allow the public to make email requests for rulemaking notices, to narrow their request to specific divisions or programs of an agency and an electronic request would stay in effect until the person submitted a request to discontinue notification. The agencies in turn would send rulemaking notices electronically, rather than by snail mail, without charge.
The fourth Simotas bill in the package also helps small businesses and local governments by requiring agencies that propose new rules to actively solicit input from those affected and to assess the impacts and take into account the “practical, legal and economic or fiscal constraints” that may affect the ability of small businesses or local governments to implement new regulatory requirements.
All four bills have also passed in the Senate and will be sent to Governor Andrew Cuomo to be signed into law.
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