An estimated 13.4 million newborns are born pre-term each year. It is the leading cause of child deaths globally, accounting for more than one million under-five deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The WHO recommends kangaroo care for all pre-term and low birthweight infants – but only after the dangerously vulnerable newborns have been clinically stabilised, usually in incubators where they are available.
Recently, researchers have been experimenting to see if the guidance for kangaroo care can be taken further for these vulnerable newborns – but with some unexpected results.
A new study from Uganda published in The Lancet found that starting kangaroo care before babies had been clinically stabilised didn’t reduce mortality in the first few days of an infant’s life, but it did save 14 per cent more lives over the first 28 days of life.
Prof Joy Lawn, Paediatrician & Perinatal Epidemiologist at London School of Health & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and senior author of the three-year Ugandan trial of 2,200 neonates from five government hospitals, said the trial was the first to show the cost effectiveness of implementing kangaroo care before newborns had been clinically stabilised.
“Fourteen per cent effect on mortality is a lot if you apply it to millions of vulnerable newborns around the world. This is an opportunity to really change the trajectory of neonatal survival, which is one of the most off-track global goals. But to get these gains, country governments and partners are going to have to invest.”
But how can something as simple as skin-to-skin contact be a better investment than a top of the range incubator?
“It’s not magic, it’s science,” said Prof Lawn, who said that the technique of kangaroo care is now used all over the world to improve the life chances and development of all newborns.
“This rightly places the family at the centre of care for their baby,” she said.
