Baltimore has already recorded 11 sleep-related infant deaths in the first eight months of 2026, matching the city's entire total from all of 2025 — and there are still four months left on the calendar. City health officials say co-sleeping or bed-sharing with a parent or caregiver was involved in roughly 74% of those cases, prompting an urgent public push to get safe sleep information and free cribs into homes before the number climbs higher.
The figures were confirmed by the Baltimore City Health Department, as reported by WBFF, which detailed how city leaders delivered remarks warning of the increase and urging residents to adopt safer sleep habits for infants. Mayor Brandon Scott and Baltimore City Health Commissioner Michelle Taylor both took part in a public demonstration of safe infant sleep practices, according to the station's report. The same figures were also confirmed by CBS News, which noted that city officials issued the warning specifically because so many months remained in the year with fatalities already equal to 2025's full-year count.
Co-Sleeping Identified as the Central Risk Factor
The 74% co-sleeping figure is the number driving much of the city's current messaging, as Baltimore Fishbowl reported in its coverage of the spike. Health officials are asking parents to room-share rather than bed-share, since placing an infant in the same bed as an adult or another child raises the risk of accidental suffocation. Scott encouraged residents to learn the “ABCDs of safe sleep,” share that information with others, and use the resources available to them, per the station's account of his remarks.
Those ABCDs call for infants to sleep Alone, on their Backs, in a Crib, and in a home where Adults Don't smoke. The “D” component has taken on added urgency this year: exposure to secondhand tobacco or marijuana smoke, along with vaping inside the home, increases airway obstruction and breathing risks for infants, according to WBAL-TV, which reported that city officials expanded their smoking warnings this year to explicitly include vaping and cannabis smoke, not just cigarettes.
Free Cribs Available for Families Who Need Them
For families who lack a safe place for an infant to sleep, HealthCare Access Maryland provides free portable cribs, known as Pack 'n Plays, for eligible low-income Baltimore City residents. Families needing a crib can call 410-649-0500. The nonprofit also offers safe-sleep or family-planning education, according to its own program materials.
Public health officials have pointed to socioeconomic pressures, housing instability, and simple lack of crib access as reasons some parents turn to bed-sharing in the first place, making the crib distribution program a practical tool alongside the educational push. Baltimore City leaders have called every one of these deaths preventable, describing each as a tragedy that the ABCDs guidance is meant to stop before it happens.
A Program That Once Cut Deaths Sharply
The scale of this year's numbers is jarring in part because Baltimore's infant health infrastructure has a track record of success. The B'more for Healthy Babies initiative, launched in 2009 by the Baltimore City Health Department and community partners, helped drive the city's overall infant mortality rate down by 35%, reaching a historic low of 7.5 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2021, according to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 2009, Baltimore had one of the highest infant mortality rates in the country, at 13.5 per 1,000 live births.
Targeted communication campaigns launched after 2009 helped the city reach its lowest total number of annual sleep-related infant deaths in recorded history in 2016, per the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs. Sleep-related deaths were the second leading cause of infant mortality when the initiative began, and they remain the leading cause of death nationwide for infants between one month and one year old, according to AAP Publications. Baltimore's model has since drawn national attention: Milwaukee copied it this month to try to close its own Black infant mortality gap.
How Baltimore's Spike Fits National Trends
Baltimore's surge lands amid a broader national picture. The CDC reported roughly 3,400 sudden unexpected infant deaths occur across the country each year, with accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed accounting for 947 of those fatalities in 2024. The American Academy of Pediatrics updated its safe sleep guidelines in 2022 to recommend infants sleep on their backs on a firm, flat, non-inclined surface, share a room without sharing a bed for at least six months, and avoid soft bedding, weighted swaddles, and inclined sleepers — guidance that aligned with federal bans on crib bumper pads and inclined sleep positioners.
Baltimore is not alone in confronting a recent rise in these deaths. Similar spikes have prompted public health warnings in other cities this year, including in Knox County, Tennessee, and Cook County, Illinois, while New York City has faced its own cluster of infant death investigations tied to sleep environments. For Baltimore, the immediate message from city leaders is straightforward: with four months left in 2026, families are urged to place infants alone, on their backs, in a crib, in smoke-free homes — and to call 410-649-0500 if they need a crib to make that possible.
