Kangaroo Mother Care

Every so often we get newborns who have low birth weights or those who have birthweights of less than 2500 kg. Althought they are born small, they have good suck and good cry. And for as long as they are in our facility, we tend to provide and educate the mothers as much as we could. As health workers, we can do so much but at the end of the day, the patients have the last stand on whether or not they follow what we suggests.

Kangaroo Mother Care has been seen as an alternative method for helping babies who are born preterm or those who have low birth weights. It follows what most kangaroos do with their young, they put them in their pouch, carrying them around. And the bond between the mother and the young is seen to be tight. 

For us humans, this is a technique of skin-to-skin contact for mother and baby. Babies are carried in a pouch. The mother's heat is transferred to the baby to help regulate the body temperature. This is beneficial for, as I've mentioned, preterm babies and those with low birth weights as they have erratic body temperature making them prone to dehydration and sickness. This also forms a tighter bond between mother and child PLUS, the baby has more direct access for breastfeeding. All of these are base on several studies performed to determine the benefits of early skin-to-skin contact.

Today marked the first time we used the Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC). It is our hope and aim to give each babies the chance for better survival and increase the bond between mother and child. Thanks to Ma'am Dearly Awa and Dr. Glinard Quezada for the technical assistance.

The baby here was born 2.4 kls. Although the baby had good suck and good cry, we opted to try them on KMC. Yes the baby had her clothes on. We were trying it out first.