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"Kangaroo Care": Understanding Its Importance and Enhancing Adoption - Cord Blood

Cord Blood

and Stem Cell Banking

“Kangaroo Care”: Understanding Its Importance and Enhancing Adoption

photo of a newborn baby

The latest guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) suggests ‘Kangaroo Mother Care’ (KMC), especially for premature babies. But its adoption and sustainability have been lagging. Why, though? A new study digs deeper into what influences the uptake of KMC, with the end goal of amplifying its use for every newborn.

Major Findings: Positives and Negatives

The benefit of practicing KMC was a cornucopia of positive feelings like warm fuzzies, a stronger parent connection, and clear benefits for their little ones. The parents themselves became champions of KMC! But all wasn’t rosy – lack of awareness about KMC, initial trepidation, embarrassment, need to allocate time for milk expression, crowded wards, limited visiting hours, poor communication leading to misunderstanding, and insufficient support were major hurdles.

Conclusion: Understand, Adopt, Repeat

Understanding what drives or hinders the KMC adoption behavioural model has given a game plan to enhance its uptake and sustainability in our hospitals.

The A-Z of Kangaroo Mother Care

Often mistaken for initial skin-to-skin contact post birth, KMC is all about prolonged periods of skin-to-skin intimacy between the baby and an adult, usually mom, well after labour. It could also be dad, older siblings, adult family members or friends. Backed by the International Paediatric Association (IPA) and the WHO, KMC has proven to be a game-changing care method for low birth weight and early-born infants across all settings.

Implementing KMC: The Malaysian Experience

In Malaysia, while the first-hour skin-to-skin practice is common, KMC is only adopted by a few neonatal units and hasn’t become part of standard newborn care yet. In fact, there’s a near-zero understanding of KMC implementation extent within the country. The researchers observed that despite an intensive education program through the SEA-URCHIN project, full-on KMC implementation has been a tough nut to crack in participant hospitals.

They believe a big part of the problem is the lack of detailed knowledge about KMC’s determinants within the community. So, they have unearthed the influencing factors in hope of improving its acceptance and making KMC the new norm for all newborn care.