Conveying the message about optimal infant positions.

The purpose of this study was to determine a convenient communication tool to help educate parents about varying the positions of their new babies. Eighty-eight percent of babies whose parents had received a brochure explaining the importance of early and regularly scheduled "tummy time" were placed in the prone position more than one time a day. Seventeen of 34 babies were started prone before the second week of life. The average Peabody Developmental Motor Scales-2 locomotion score of the babies regularly placed in prone was significantly higher than that of the babies not regularly placed in prone when tested at 6 months and again at 18 months of age.