Dear All,

The Milk Mob started a new educational series called the Clinical Question of the Week. I received approval from the Lactnet listserv leadership to post these weekly.

In the future, I will post instructions on our website on how to write these, in case any of you would like to contribute. They are fun and educational to do.

Please let me know if you have questions or feedback.

Thanks,

Anne



Anne Eglash MD, IBCLC, FABM

Clinical Professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine

University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health

Medical Director, Mothers Milk Bank of the Western Great Lakes

Founder and President of The Milk Mob, dedicated to building Breastfeeding Friendly Medical Systems and Communities

Kangaroo Mother Care and Neonatal Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis

July 27, 2016

Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) is a term that is used interchangeably with skin-to-skin. The act of skin-to-skin involves placing a newborn chest-to-chest with mom, and in some cases dad or another individual/guardian. The adult and newborn both have their shirts off so that there is direct skin contact between their chests. According to the authors, KMC was introduced by Dr. Edgar Rey Sanabria in 1978 in Bogota Columbia as an alternative to the incubator to keep low birth weight infants warm and stable.

Hospitals that are Baby Friendly Certified<https://www.babyfriendlyusa.org/> employ KMC after birth and as often as possible. Many other hospitals also encourage KMC, based on the evidence that it is safe and effective as a way to stabilize newborns.

Why all the hype about KMC? Allowing the infant to spend time chest-to-chest with mom and others has been associated with many benefits for premature, late preterm, and full term infants.

The authors of this analysis reviewed 124 studies on the benefits of KMC for premature, low birth weight, and full term newborns, to determine what the research evidence tells us.

Based on these authors' findings, what do you think is not a benefit of KMC for any newborn?
1.      Decrease risk of infant mortality
2.      Increased rates of breastfeeding at hospital discharge and at 4 months postpartum
3.      A slower heart rate
4.      Improved blood sugars (less hypoglycemia)
5.      Improved temperature stability (less hypothermia)
6.      Lower risk of re-admission to the hospital after infant illness
7.      Improved oxygen in the blood
To see the answer, please visit: https://themilkmob.org/questions/kangaroo-mother-care-neonatal-outcomes-meta-analysis/



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