Kangaroo-Mother Care reduces mortality in low birthweight and preterm babies

Between enrolment and 28 days, Kangaroo-Mother Care (KMC) reduced mortality in low birthweight (LBW) and preterm newborns, says an article published in Frontiers in Pediatrics. 

Skin-to-skin contact between the mother and the newborn, frequent exclusive or nearly exclusive breastfeeding, and early discharge were the original definitions of kangaroo mother care (KMC), which has since been proposed as an alternative to traditional interventions for care of low birthweight infants. KMC is a multifaceted interference for LBW infants, preterm infants, and their parents. In order to increase the use of KMC in clinical practice, Zhen Zhu and colleagues set out to evaluate the advantages of KMC systematically and intuitively from the efficacy of KMC on the clinical outcomes (mortality, sepsis, hospital stay, hypothermia, and exclusive breastfeeding) of LBW and preterm infants in the first 28 days.

For this investigation, papers from the databases PubMed, EBSCO, Web of Science, and the Cochrane library that had been published up through November 2021 were obtained. The main clinical result was death from the time of enrolment to 28 days. The average length of hospital stays, exclusive breastfeeding at the end of the neonatal period, hypothermia, sepsis, and exclusive breastfeeding after discharge were the secondary clinical outcomes.