Kangaroo Mother Care, an example to follow from developing countries

Abstract

Introduction Each year about 20 million infants of low birth weight are born worldwide, which imposes a heavy burden on healthcare and social systems in developing countries.1 w1 Medical care of low birthweight infants is complex, demands an expensive infrastructure and highly skilled staff, and is often a very disruptive experience for families.2 w2 w3 w4 Premature babies in poorly resourced settings often end up in understaffed and ill equipped neonatal care units, that may be turned into potentially deadly traps by a range of factors colluding—for example, malfunctioning incubators, broken monitors, overcrowding, nosocomial infections, etc. In 1978 Edgar Rey, a Colombian paediatrician concerned with the problems arising from a shortage of incubators and the impact of separating women from newborns in neonatal care units, developed Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC),3 a healthcare technique for low birthweight infants that is at least as effective as traditional care in a neonatal care unit.4 5 Footnotes Additional references w1-w20 are on bmj.com Contributors and sources JGRP and NC were responsible for the general idea, reviewed the literature, and synthesised their experience as KMC providers and researchers. LGC devised the general structure of the paper and contributed with the view point of a family practitioner who is familiar with the theoretical and practical aspects of the method. All authors contributed equally to the preparation and revision of the manuscript. NC provided the illustrations for this article. Competing interests None declared.