If your newborn is small or sick, you can hold the diapered baby to the bare chest with a blanket draped over the baby’s back. Both mother and father can do it. That’s Kangaroo care for premature babies.
“A decade ago, some tertiary care hospitals introduced a simple solution: the mother was encouraged to hold the baby close to her body, suffusing it with warmth. It helps to improve the baby’s weight and encourages mother-baby bonding. The baby begins to feed well, too,” says S. Srinivasan, State nodal officer for neonatal facility.
He has a point. Some of the complications leading to death among newborns are low birth weight, hypothermia and infections, which prevent babies from feeding well.
A couple of years ago, the State government drafted a policy to take the style forward. In April last, it was introduced in 30 government and private maternity centres.
The kangaroo mother care (KMC) requires very little investment. While the hospitals and centres have invested in Lycra bands to hold the baby and a recliner for the mother, doctors say mothers can improvise with a sari or dupattah at home. Fathers are also taught to hold the baby to their chest with a towel.
The Lycra band costs Rs. 60-Rs. 70 apiece, and the recliner a few hundred rupees. Each maternity centre under the programme is given three or four recliners. “We advise the mother to place the newborn in a frog position between her breasts and strap on the band. The baby will not fall, and she can carry on with her work. The mother must follow good personal and cord hygiene and provide skin-to-skin contact to the baby. The mother continues the practice until the baby becomes restless and wants to move out,” Dr. Srinivasan says.
The babies show remarkable improvement from day one. With the mother-baby bond established, the baby begins to feed well. “Even a gain in weight of 10 gm a day is a huge improvement,” he points out.
