Kangaroo Care is a practice of holding a baby that involves skin-to-skin contact. The baby, who is usually naked apart from a diaper, is placed in an upright position against a parent’s bare chest. Both mothers and fathers can do kangaroo care. It’s often used with premature infants while they’re still within the hospital.
What is kangaroo care?
Holding your baby close to your chest is a surreal experience that can help build the bond between you and your new family member. This type of touch isn’t just for bonding — it’s also medically beneficial for your infant. Kangaroo care is a method of holding your baby close to your chest. It allows for skin-to-skin contact between you and the baby. The process involves that during each session, your baby will be placed (naked except for a diaper and hat) on your chest (also bared to allow skin-to-skin) for up to a few hours. A blanket, shirt, hospital gown, or robe will be wrapped around you and over your baby’s back for warmth. This wrapping of your infant into your chest looks very much like a mother kangaroo holding her baby in her pouch — which is where the name kangaroo care comes from.
“Kangaroo care first started in the 1970s, as a means to promote bonding and early breastfeeding in full-term infants,” is believed. “In the late 70s, this practice was extended to preterm infants due to over-crowded nurseries, high mortality rates, high infection rates and a lack of resources, like warming devices, known as isolettes. Fast forward nearly 50 years, and the practice of kangaroo care is frequently used in NICUs around the world, due to its profound benefits to both mother and infant.”
We understand that the concept of skin-to-skin is much like kangaroo care, and in many cases, the terms are used interchangeably. In the current day, skin-to-skin is typically a term used for full-term infants, describing how much of the first hours and days of the infant’s life are spent against the mother’s chest, promoting both bonding and breast milk production. Kangaroo care is more often used when referring to the care of a pre-term baby in the NICU receives.
What are the benefits of kangaroo care?
There are many benefits of kangaroo care. It’s not only good for both premature and full-term babies but also for the parents. Both the mother and the father can practice skin-to-skin bonding with the baby.
The benefits of kangaroo care to your baby include:
- Stabilizing your baby’s heart rate.
- Improving your baby’s breathing pattern and making the breathing more regular.
- Improving oxygen saturation levels (this is a sign of how well oxygen is being delivered to all of the infant’s organs and tissues).
- Gaining in sleep time.
- Experiencing more rapid weight gain.
- Decreasing crying.
- Having more successful breastfeeding episodes.
- Having an earlier hospital discharge.
The benefits of kangaroo baby care.
- Improving bonding with your baby and the feeling of closeness.
- Increasing your breast milk supply.
- Increasing your confidence in the ability to care for your new baby.
- Increasing your confidence that your baby is well cared for.
- Increasing your sense of control.
Why does kangaroo care work?
The benefits of kangaroo baby care listed above have all been demonstrated in research studies. In fact, studies have found that holding your baby skin-to-skin, it can stabilize the heart and respiratory (breathing) rates, improve oxygen saturation rates, better regulate an infant’s blood heat and conserve a baby’s calories.
When a mother is practicing kangaroo care, her infant typically snuggles into her breasts and falls asleep within a couple of minutes. The breasts themselves are shown to vary in temperature to match your baby’s temperature needs. In other words, your breasts can increase in temperature when your baby’s body is cool and may decrease in temperature when the baby is warm.
The extra sleep that your infant gets while snuggling with mom and therefore the assistance in regulating blood heat helps your baby conserve energy and redirect calorie expenditures (use) toward growth and weight gain. Being positioned on mom also helps to stabilize your infant’s respiratory and heart rates. Research has also shown that practicing kangaroo care can have a positive impact on your baby’s brain development.
Do check out our recent blog – https://www.saideephospital.com/2020/12/12/breast-lumps-may-or-may-not-be-malignant-but-they-should-not-be-ignored/
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