The four-year block before that showed a rate of 3.54, with 16 deaths in the period between 2007-11.
Wanganui missed out last year when nearly 1400 Pepi-Pods were handed out by health boards around the country.
However, the Whanganui Regional Health Network has now been contracted to purchase and distribute them, and handed over the first one on May 17.
"The baby was three weeks old and it had been sleeping with its mother," WRHN maternal navigator Aani Sherwin said.
The baby would not sleep in the Pepi-Pod after growing accustomed to sleeping with its mother, and Ms Sherwin said it was best to have the baby sleep in its Pepi-Pod on the first night home.
"It's best to be their first bed."
So far they had distributed about a dozen, including one in Taihape.
Families have to be referred to distributors by midwives or agencies, and parents have to meet at least two points in the list of criteria to receive a Pepi-Pod.
The criteria include: The baby being newborn; being exposed to smoking during pregnancy; being premature (37 weeks or earlier); having a low birth weight (2500g or less); or being in a household where there was regular smoking, alcohol or drug use.
If the mother was a teenager or on medication that might make her sleepy, or if the parents were Maori or Pacific Islander, this was also included in the criteria list.
All parents receiving Pepi-Pods are given an information pack and a singlet for the baby made from Merino wool.
Ms Sherwin said mothers loved the Pepi-Pods, and she was hoping it would improve breastfeeding rates in Wanganui, as it would be easy for mothers to pick the baby up and breastfeed them if they were lying next to them in the same bed.
A baby can sleep in the Pepi-Pod for three-to-four months, after which it should move into a cot.
Distributors asked parents to either return the Pepi-Pods to the WRHN or pass them on to someone else once the baby grows out of them.
"We don't want them selling them on Trademe," Ms Sherwin said.
"It's not fair ... "
