We had spoken a while back about the amazing story of a mother reviving her baby by using kangaroo care, and now we are discovering more important and significant reasons why we should be using kangaroo care for new born babies.
A recent report speaks of how kangaroo care even increases the mother-child bonding due to that first warm, nurturing skin to skin contact between mother and baby.
Some hospitals, such as the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre’s Magee-Women’s Hospital even offers new mothers the option of choosing kangaroo care, something that new parents can help focus on after the arrival of the baby.
Kangaroo mother care or kangaroo mother intervention is an age old technique that helped the mother to use her own skin as a sort of natural incubator for protecting an infant; particularly a low birth weight or premature infant.
This age old practice saw something of a revival when in 1978, in Bogota, Columbia, a shortage of doctors, nurses and incubators caused the doctors to recommend that mothers nurture their babies by placing them next to their skin, without any cloth or material between them.
The mother’s skin temperature warms and nurtures the new born baby in the same way that a kangaroo mother does; a practice that enhances mother and child bonding.
This technique may also facilitate successful breast feeding and may also allow stable babies to leave hospital and go home earlier, regardless of prematurity or birth weight. It is thought that kangaroo care may also reduce the risk of infection and severe health issues among babies, and perhaps even save lives.
And there is really no reason why only mother’s can offer their babies kangaroo care; dads’ skin to skin contact with the baby can be as effective. The American Academy of Pediatrics also supports kangaroo care.
