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Kangaroo Mother Care

Child Survival Practice

A child survival practice, commonly abbreviated KMC, built around early and prolonged skin-to-skin contact between a mother, or another caregiver, and her newborn, combined with exclusive breastfeeding, hospital initiation of the practice followed by continuation at home, early hospital discharge, and close follow-up care, endorsed by the World Health Organization as evidence based care for low birth weight infants since 2003. The method originated in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1983, developed by the physicians Rey and Martinez as a response to a shortage of incubators for stabilized premature infants. Modern evidence shows that kangaroo mother care lowers infant mortality and the risk of hospital-acquired infection, increases infants' weight gain, increases rates of breastfeeding, supports neuromotor and brain development and strengthens the bond between mother and infant, and the World Health Organization now recommends, on the strength of high-certainty evidence, that it begin as soon as possible after birth, making it a particularly valuable practice in resource-limited settings.

Facts
Origin Year
1978 1
Sourced to the subject's own accountMarks the origin of kangaroo mother care at the Instituto Materno Infantil in Bogota, Colombia, under Edgar Rey Sanabria.
Practice ClassSourced to the subject's own account
Maternal and child health, newborn care 1
Classification
Practice ClassSourced to the subject's own account
Conventional / Biomedical Practice 1
Connections

Associated With

The World Health Organization publishes and promotes the global kangaroo mother care implementation guidance.

In Branch

Kangaroo mother care (SubLabel Child Survival Practice) is a maternal and child health practice for low-birth-weight newborn care.

Sources
1. Wikipedia: Kangaroo care
Wikipedia
  • Kangaroo care article, lead paragraph, first sentence
    Kangaroo mother care (KMC), which involves skin-to-skin contact (SSC), is an intervention to care for premature or low birth weight (LBW) infants.
  • Kangaroo care article, History section, paragraph on Bogota origin
    In 1978, due to increasing morbidity and mortality rates in the Instituto Materno Infantil NICU in Bogotá, Colombia, Edgar Rey Sanabria, professor of neonatology at Department of Paediatry National University of Colombia
  • Program classification, entity description sentence
    A child survival practice, commonly abbreviated KMC, built around early and prolonged skin-to-skin contact between a mother, or another caregiver, and her newborn, combined with exclusive breastfeeding, hospital initiation of the practice followed by continuation at home, early hospital discharge, and close follow-up care, endorsed by the World Health Organization as evidence based care for low birth weight infants since 2003.
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