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  • Title: "Kangaroo care" helps preemies.
    Journal: Indian Med Trib; ; 5(1-2):1. PubMed ID: 12179207.
    Abstract:
    Kangaroo care refers to an approach to breast feeding first tried in Colombia during the late 1970s in an attempt to reduce the spread of infections resulting from newborns sharing hospital incubators. The method involves draping a blanket around the mother and infant, dressing the infant in only a diaper and holding him or her upright between the mother's breasts during feeding. In kangaroo care, the mother essentially became the infant's incubator. A study led by Dr. Jo-Ann Blaymore Bier, an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Brown University, has determined that for underweight newborns, the direct skin-to-skin contact with their mothers during breast feeding experienced through kangaroo care may be beneficial to their health. The study involved 50 newborns who weighed less than 3.3 pounds at births. The infants breast fed through kangaroo care were more likely than preemies who were breast fed while clothed and cradled in their mothers' arms to still be breast feeding 1 month after hospital discharge. Moreover, mothers in the kangaroo care group had more stable milk production and breast fed longer, helping infants' immune systems strengthen. It is thought that the direct skin-to-skin contact helped the mothers and infants bond psychologically, stimulating maternal milk production. Kangaroo care infants also had higher oxygen levels in their blood, possibly because they received more oxygen from their mother's breast milk. Immature infants' lungs need high levels of oxygen in order to develop properly.
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