Pediatrics & Therapeutics
Open Access

Abstract

Kangaroo care in neonatal intensive care

Brankica Vasiljevic

Introduction: Kangaroo Care (KC) or Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) was introduced more than 25 years ago in Bogota, Colombia, as an alternative to conventional Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) care for low-birthweight infants in resourcelimited settings. In developing countries, KC for low-birthweight infants has been shown to reduce mortality, severe illness, infection and length of hospital stay. Practice of skin-to-skin contact between the preterm infant and parent KC has been adopted in many NICUs, initially as a means of promoting maternal-infant bonding and breastfeeding. KC is most often offered for stable preterm infants who are 30 weeks’ gestational age at birth, but nowadays KC is offered also to infants on ventilator and extreme preterm infant 26 weeks’ gestational age at birth.
Aim: To examine first the literature and guidelines for KC in very premature infants (<32 weeks) in NICU and after that application and barriers of KC in our NICU.
Result: KC in preterm and sick infants in NICU has benefit in physiological stability (thermoregulation, cardiorespiratory) stability, behavioral (sleep, breastfeeding duration and degree of exclusivity) domains, better nutrition, earlier discharge from hospital and increase parental satisfaction. Barriers to implementation of KC include lack of staff and time, poor knowledge and inadequate training staff and parents, medical concerns including the unstable clinical condition of the newborn or mother, lack of privacy and parental reluctance.
Conclusion: KC facilitates bonding and may improve infant nutrition and neurodevelopment and reduced neonatal morbidity and mortality and decrease length of hospital stay and should therefore be encouraged in clinical practice. Identification of barriers to implementation KC is an important step in the successful implementation.