Baby Tips – Kangaroo Care

Kangaroo Care: The importance of a Mother’s Touch

Skin-to-skin contact proves to have dramatic positive effects on preemies and full term babies. Today, doctors across the United States, South America, South Africa, and other countries recommend Kangaroo Care — sometimes referred to as Kangaroo Mother Care — to new moms of both premature and full-term infants. Doctors recommend that this bonding last from 60 minutes to 24 hours a day and can be performed by fathers as well. 

The more skin-to-skin contact, the better.  It should ideally start at birth, but is helpful anytime. Physiology and research provide overwhelming evidence that Kangaroo Mother Care is not only safe but superior to the use of technology such as incubators. Depriving babies of skin-to-skin makes alternative stress pathways in the brain, which can lead to ADD, colic, sleep disorders, among other things.

Benefits for the Baby?

• Healthier heart rates and inspiration
• Increased breastfeedings
• Improved immunity
• Increased weight gain
• Regulated body temperature

How-to?

• Parents should be seated comfortably in a quiet, dimly lit room with some privacy.
• Position the baby, dressed in diaper (and cap for warmth if needed) on your bare chest for a minimum of 20 minutes.
• This bonding time can be experienced by both mother and father.  If Kangaroo Care is performed around feedings, place the baby with dad after mom has breastfed.

Tips By www.1BabyLink.com