Continuous skin-to-skin contact between a mother and her premature infant appears to help them to thrive just as well as traditional care in incubators, according to a new report.

In developing countries where mothers and doctors have less access to medical technology, this technique, known as kangaroo care, “can make the difference between life or death,” lead author Dr. Juan Gabriel Ruiz-Pelaez of Javeriana University in Bogota, Columbia told AMN Health.

Now, accumulating evidence suggests that kangaroo care, which costs much less than an incubator, would also help premature babies born in wealthier countries, even if their parents have access to incubators and other traditional tools for tiny babies, Ruiz-Pelaez noted.

“It is safe, and it enhances a lot of the qualities of bonding between the mother and infant,” he said in an interview. Ruiz-Pelaez and his colleagues describe the benefits of kangaroo care in the current issue of the British Medical Journal.

The method was developed in Colombia as an alternative to placing premature, low-birth-weight newborns in an incubator. As part of kangaroo care, mothers lay babies against their chests for hours each day, keeping babies upright and switching off with fathers or other caretakers when they need a break. The technique is used for premature babies who are medically stable, but cannot yet regulate their body temperatures, Ruiz-Pelaez said.

Research has suggested kangaroo care is not only safe for these tiny babies, but may also lead to less severe infections, encourage breast-feeding and aid in infant development.

The technique has also been shown to help mothers with their “emotional healing,” after giving birth to a tiny, sick infant that is extremely fragile, Ruiz-Pelaez said.

Moreover, a recent study suggested that infants who received kangaroo care showed better neurological development at one year of age than infants treated by incubator, suggesting that kangaroo care may, in some instances, surpass traditional care, he said.

He added that kangaroo care can be a “very demanding experience” for mothers, especially if they decide to carry their infants 24 hours per day. However, a recent survey of mothers who performed kangaroo care with their infants showed they would do it again, if they had another premature baby. “Practically 100 percent answered, without hesitation, I will carry the baby in the kangaroo position,” he said.

Just how widespread kangaroo care is currently used in Western countries is unclear. A recent survey of U.S. hospitals suggested that around 80 percent encourage mothers to spend at least a “few hours” per day in skin-to-skin contact with their fragile newborns, the researcher said.

He added that doctors and nurses in wealthy countries may hesitate to adopt kangaroo care because it’s often difficult to change protocol, and they worry about the logistics of continuously including parents in preterm babies’ care.

Kangaroo care is also demanding on healthcare workers, Ruiz-Pelaez noted. For instance, nurses have to initially spend hours with new mothers, explaining how to handle and feed their fragile babies. However, studies suggest that nurses are often willing to try kangaroo care, he said.

In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Neil Marlow of the University of Nottingham, Queen’s Medical Centre in the UK, writes that clinicians need to generally embrace a more “baby sensitive” technique when caring for premature infants, and kangaroo care is one aspect of that technique.

“There is little doubt that (kangaroo care) appears a safe and effective approach to caring for premature infants,” Marlow writes.

SOURCE: British Medical Journal, November 13, 2004.