Survival of Premature Babies with the Revolutionary Kangaroo Mother Care Technique at a Tertiary Care Center, Sindh, Pakistan
Bakhtiar Ahmed Bhambrho, Nisar Ahmed Shar, Amjad Ali Mughal, Farukh Imtiaz, Pardeep Kumar, Rabia Parveen
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ABSTRACT
Background: Kangaroo mother care (KMC) is a resource-limited
method for low-birth-weight babies that seeks to mitigate mortality rates by
thermoregulation, breastfeeding assistance, and early hospital discharge.
Methods: This study was carried out at GIMS
hospital Khairpur Kangaroo Mother Care Unit at PAQSJIMS between August 2019 to
September 2020. A total of hundred mothers and their infants were enrolled in
the study. A non-probability convenience sampling technique was employed. A
Questionnaire filled with the permission of admitted mother and primary data
collected as per proforma i.e. date of admission, mother name, address, age,
parity, gravida, date of delivery, place of delivery, Type of delivery,
gestation at birth (weeks), birth weight, gender, Date of KMS admission, weight
at KMC, discharge date of KMC, weight of Discharge KMC, status at the time of
discharge and cause of death (if any). All mothers used KMC kits and the infant
weight at admission and discharge were documented.
Results: The average age (Figure 1) of mothers
was recorded as 31.69 (20-40 years). The babies weight at the time of KMC unit
admission was recorded as 0.7 – 1.8 grams and after 3-4 weeks admission the
babies survived and gained weight recorded at time of discharge was 0.8 to 2.2
grams which showed that all mothers used kits properly, and all babies
survived.
Conclusions: All mothers were pleased to operate KMC
kits. KMC is a very innovative technique
to save the lives of premature newborns. This therapy emphasizes mothers for
continuous skin-to-skin touch with infants, as well as wrapping the child in a
warm blanket. The availability of space facilities and capacity building for
health workers are therefore the fundamental requirements that must be funded
by international aid agencies in order to scale up the initiative in these
environments.
Keywords: Neonatal survival, KMC, care,
breastfeeding.