A mother looking to prevent cases of sudden infant death syndrome in Maryland has won $25,000 to help fund her "baby box" startup concept. As a member of Johns Hopkins Social Innovation Lab’s 2016-2017 cohort, Shantell Roberts has been working on a venture around Portable Alternative Cribs, through her nonprofit Touching Young Lives Inc. The project aims to encourage safe sleep for infants and is a spinoff of a baby box concept seen in Finland. There, the government provides small cardboard boxes to pregnant mothers, designed to keep babies well-positioned for safe sleep. The boxes are filled with bedding, clothes and other baby supplies. About 40,000 boxes are given out each year and the program is believed to be one of the contributing factors to Finland's low infant mortality rates. Roberts was intrigued by the practice and saw the potential for a similar venture to benefit mothers in Maryland.
