Kangaroo Mother Care proves a boon for preterm, low weight babies

Update: 2025-01-09 08:01 IST

Kanigiri : Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC), a method of care for pre term or low birthweight infants, by placing them upright in skin-to-skin contact with the mother, proved to be effective and low cost alternative to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) care.

Kanigiri MLA Dr Mukku Ugranarasimha Reddy introduced the KMC at the local Community Hospital run by the Andhra Pradesh Vaidya Vidhana Parishad recently, and it provided best results already.

Kangaroo Mother Care is developed in 1978, to meet the demand for the incubators in a hospital in Colombia in the USA, and was introduced in India in 1994.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) endorsed the KMC in 2003, and published a practical guide for health professionals. About a decade ago, the Government of India issued operational guidelines on KMC and optimal feeding of the low birth weight children. However, only a small number of hospitals in the country are implementing it.

Preterm or premature or low birth weight children, who are below 2.5 kg weight, cannot keep their body warm, may not be able to suck breastmilk, and their mortality rate is high. Kangaroo Mother Care is a simple method of care for low birth weight infants that includes early and prolonged skin-to-skin contact with the mother or a substitute caregiver and exclusive and frequent breastfeeding.

The benefits of KMC for 4 to 12 hours daily, based on the requirement, include stabilising the body temperature of the baby, better neurodevelopment, preventing infections, and encouraging a bond between the baby and the mother.

According to the World Health Organisation’s data, about 80 lakh children are born with low birth weight every year, and about 20 per 1,000 children die at birth. Doctors attribute a majority of these deaths to being born premature or with low birth weight.

To reduce the deaths of children, they should be kept in the ICU and incubators for longer periods and under constant watch, which is not affordable to all. The doctors are suggesting Kangaroo Mother Care for everyone, even though they can afford the ICU, to opt for the KMC which has proved to be more than successful.

Dr Meeram Venkata Subbaiah, superintendent of the Community Hospital in Kanigiri said that they used to refer about 10 preterm and low birth weight children to GGH Ongole or Guntur for the ICU and incubator support.

He said that their MLA, who is a health professional himself, introduced the KMC ward on their premises about three months ago. Since then, they provided the KMC to 20 babies in the hospital itself. He observed that the children given Kangaroo Mother Care were in better condition, and discharged early than the children put in the ICU Incubator support.

Prakasam district collector A Thameem Ansariya recently visited the hospital, along with the MLA Dr Ugranarasimha Reddy. The collector was impressed by the KMC and its benefits, and told the MLA that she would recommend implementation of the Kangaroo Mother Care in all government hospitals in the district.

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