“Kangaroo Care” found to offer developmental benefits for premature newborns

http://blog.case.edu/think/2013/07/10/akangaroo_carea_found_to_offer_developmental_benefits_for_premature_newborns

July 10, 2013

New research in the Journal of Newborns & Infant Nursing Reviews concludes that so-called “kangaroo care” (KC), the skin-to-skin and chest-to-chest touching between baby and mother, offers developmentally appropriate therapy for hospitalized preterm infants.

In the article, “Kangaroo Care as a Neonatal Therapy,” Susan Ludington-Hoe, RN, CNM, PhD, FAAN, from Case Western Reserve University’s Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, describes how KC delivers benefits beyond bonding and breastfeeding for a hospital’s tiniest newborns.

“KC is now considered an essential therapy to promote growth and development of premature infants and their brain development,” Ludington-Hoe reports.

But while KC’s benefits are known, its use is not widely promoted by hospitals, she says.

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Kangaroo Care for preemies involves the mother nestling the baby on her chest for at least one hour at a time and ideally for 22 hours a day for the first six weeks, and about eight hours a day for the next year.

Throughout Scandinavia and the Netherlands, KC is widely practiced, said the researcher. They practice 24/7 Kangaroo Care because mothers are told that they have to be their baby’s place of care, and they make arrangements so that someone else watches children at home so that the infant is always in maternal or paternal KC while hospitalized. It continues at home where mothers wear wraps that securely contain the infant on her chest to prevent falling.

Ludington-Hoe reports that this approach is standard care in Scandinavia and Germany, where many preemies leave the hospital about three weeks earlier than in the United States. Also, KC is used in those countries after normal births and continues for three full months.

In previous research, benefits of KC have extended from childbirth to age 16, showing improved cognitive and motor development in newborns that received KC during hospitalization.

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Preemies held by their mothers in a prone position for an extended time tend to sleep better, which aids brain development. Infants adjust their heartbeats and body temperatures to their mother’s and absorb immune benefits from their mother’s skin, the researcher found.

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