Abstract :
Kangaroo mother care (KMC) is the concept of rearing a premature or low birth baby in an environment where he can get the basic needs of his early days i.e. the warmth, the nutrition and the close observation for the complications he is prone to, like apnea of prmaturity. KMC has three components. The first is the kangaroo position. Once the premature infant has adapted to extrauterine life and is able to breastfeed, he is positioned between the motherʹs breasts or the center of the fatherʹs chest, in an upright position, with direct skin-to-skin contact. The second component is kangaroo nutrition. Breastfeeding is the prime source of nutrition in this method of care; infants also may receive preterm formula whenever necessary. The third component is the clinical control, infants are monitored on a regular daily basis, until they are gaining at least 20 g per day.Premature birth is a major contributor to infant mortality especially in developing countries. The death of premature and low birth weight babies is the leading cause of our high early neonatal mortality rates. The main causes for the high mortality of these babies in our circumstances are the lack of facilities for keeping these babies at thermoneutral environment and early initiation of breast-feeding. This method can very easily and economically solve our these problems and this method must be adopted in order to reduce our neonatal mortality at no extra cost.
