The article on premies coping better with pain "in Kangaroo Mother Care" makes me think of what happened to "natural childbirth" in the 1970s and 80s.  

As I understand it, the term Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) was created specifically to describe something very different from Kangaroo Care (KCare).

In KCare, the medical facility is the primary caregiver and the mother provides adjunct care - here and there, now and then, for long enough periods that the baby isn't done more harm than good by the transferring of baby and wires and tubes on and off the mother, but certainly not full-time.

KMC means specifically that the mother is the primary caregiver and the hospital provides adjunct care, with virtually everything taking place while the baby is in skin contact with his mother.

The procedure this study used doesn't even qualify as KCare, let alone KMC.  It's nothing more than very brief skin to skin contact in the midst of mother-baby separation.  But by usurping the term KMC, the study begins to mainstream the idea that touching their chests briefly is all a mother and baby really need.  In another 10 years, hospitals will be able to say, "Oh, we tried KMC.  Doesn't do what we thought it would.  Not worth the trouble," meaning that they tried brief bouts of skin to skin and didn't see miracles.  When in fact they never came close to trying true KMC at all.  Just as hospitals have found that "natural childbirth" really doesn't work very well for most women.

Back in the 60s and 70s, mothers fought for - and got - partners in the delivery room and lovely little "birthing rooms"... in addition to what the movement was *really* about, which was awake and aware childbirth with very few interventions.  Hospitals finally joined the movement, installed lovely curtains in the newly-named "birthing rooms"... and now what we have is partners present, pretty curtains, and a skyrocketing list of interventions, all under the proud banner of "awake and aware" if not quite "natural".

I'm working on a letter to the journal and to the researchers.  The term KMC *must not* be eroded like this, or babies in the future will get their obligatory 15 minutes on mom before they go off to the very isolette that KMC was devised to eliminate.

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY  USA
www.normalfed.com


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