Two years ago, Nikkia Albert of Hazelwood put her 2-month-old son on the couch alongside his father, and all seemed well.

A short time later, Ms. Albert thought her son, Mustafa, was sound asleep, only to realize he was not moving. He had died.

It's unclear to this day whether the baby suffocated or whether he was another victim of sudden infant death syndrome.

But it represented another unexpected infant death in Allegheny County, which has had a long history of them in the African-American community, despite years of efforts to reduce the number.

From 2001 to 2006, a total of 68 unexpected infant deaths were documented countywide, with 43, or two-thirds of the total, involving black children.

"Sixty-eight deaths over four years are 68 too many," Dr. Bruce W. Dixon, county health director, said yesterday at a news conference at Children's Hospital.

The continuing high incidence has prompted the Allegheny County Health Department to partner with Children's Hospital in launching a program to help the African-American community reduce the risk.

They have created the Infant Safe Sleep Church Outreach Committee, which will recruit African-American clergy and churches to educate their congregations on preventing SIDS. A training session is scheduled from 9 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at Bethany Baptist Church, 7745 Tioga St., Homewood, for those interested in teaching others.

The program will use clergy, health care professionals and Children's Hospital's Family Care Connection centers located in underserved areas to educate young mothers.

"The vast majority of these deaths are entirely preventable through better education," said Brenda J. Gregg, director of community health at Children's Hospital.

Clergy members are being encouraged to discuss the issue from the pulpit and include it in sermons to alert people to the risks infants face in unsafe sleep conditions.

The Health Department and hospital took action because 97 percent of the county's 68 infant death cases involved babies "discovered in an unacceptable sleep environment."

The department's Child Death Review Team found a significantly higher risk of SIDS among premature and low birth-weight infants and in infants born to younger, single mothers who smoke and never completed high school.

They also found higher risk for babies who aren't breast-fed and whose mothers hadn't started prenatal care until after the first trimester.

Guidelines for preventing SIDS include placing the baby on his or her back in an empty crib in a smoke-free home.

Soft bedding heightens the risk of SIDS by five times, while placing the baby on his or her stomach increases the risk by two times. SIDS victims were five times more likely to have shared a bed with other children. Sleeping on the stomach on soft bedding increases the SIDS risk by 21 times.

Each year about 2,500 infants, usually between the ages of 1 and 6 months, die in the United States from SIDS.

"It's hard to deal with trying to explain how easy something can happen," said Ms. Albert, 31, who had two children prior to Mustafa and is expecting another. "A simple accident can cause the death of your child.

"It's difficult describing how quickly it can be over," she said. "This is all about children living to see the next day."