Kangaroo Care - The Best Thing Ever

Today, Baby Ivy Chiromo* is going home.

We have been with Baby Ivy since she was born 3 months ago as a preterm with severe respiratory distress. Her mother has been through it all, collapsed baby needing resuscitation, apneic attacks, jaundice, neonatal sepsis..basically everything that could go wrong...yet here she is going home, with a satisfactory 1.8kg baby girl.

There are many challenges at my hospital. We don't always have all the basic medicine, sometimes we cannot transfuse a baby because there is not enough blood or we need surgery that cannot be performed in the country. It is frustrating to know what is needed and yet unable to provide it. So, on a day like this where it is good news you realize that it is all worth it.

Just because Baby Ivy is going home it does not mean that the journey is over. Looking after a preterm at home can be just as challenging. She will need what we called Kangaroo Care. Yes, just like the kangaroos Down Under.

Even Father's can do kangaroo care

Wikipedia's definition of Kangaroo Care is a technique practiced on newborn, usually preterm, infants wherein the infant is held, skin-to-skin, with an adult. Kangaroo care for pre-term infants may be restricted to a few hours per day, but if they are medically stable that time may be extended. Some parents may keep their babies in-arms for many hours per day. Kangaroo care, named for the similarity to how certain marsupials carry their young, was initially developed to care for preterm infants in areas where incubators are either unavailable or unreliable.

 How to do it

Skin-to-skin contact  between the baby's front and the mother's chest. The more skin-to-skin contact, the better. For comfort a small nappy is fine, and for warmth a cap may be used. Skin-to-skin contact should ideally start at birth, but is helpful at any time. It should ideally be continuous day and night, but even shorter periods are still helpful.

Exclusive breastfeeding means that for an average mother, direct suckling by the baby from the breasts is all that is needed.  For very premature babies, expressing milk and addition of some essential nutrients may be needed.

Support to the dyad means that whatever is needed for the medical, emotional, psychological and physical well being of mother and baby is provided to them, without separating them. This might mean adding ultramodern equipment if available, or purely intense psychological support in contexts with no resources. It can even mean going home very early.