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Kangaroo Care May Be The Best Option For Premature Babies
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Kangaroo Care Versus the NICU
A study was performed in Colombia on premature babies born from 1993 through 1996. Researchers wanted to analyze the long-term effects of kangaroo care versus conventional treatment for babies born prematurely.
20 years later, researchers contacted adults from both groups and analyzed different aspects of their lives, including longevity and health, the quality of their social skills and their level of income. They found that the babies in the kangaroo care group grew up to have better social skills, earn higher incomes, and enjoy better health. These differences were most pronounced among babies born into poor families. These individuals exhibited greater impulse control and less antisocial behavior.
Keep reading: Top 10 Healthiest Foods to Eat After Giving Birth
The study, published in the Pediatrics medical journal, suggests that this method of simply holding a child is actually more effective than high-tech neonatal intensive care in an incubator.
The question becomes, why is this the case?
It seems that the simple experience of natural skin-to-skin contact between mother and child helps strengthen that child both physiologically and psychologically. The baby feels safe and protected, which results in less stress on the fragile nervous system of a premature baby. This results in a baby that grows up to be healthier and stronger than a baby born prematurely might be expected to be. The results have been so positive that kangaroo care is becoming popular even with mothers who deliver babies after a full-term pregnancy.
Now, premature birth is a very serious issue, and one shouldn’t base their decisions on one article on the internet. But if you’re expecting and suspect that you might go into labor prematurely, talk to your OBGYN about the kangaroo care approach. The evidence doesn’t lie, and it would certainly seem that it’s the way that nature intended for mothers to care for their babies after birth. Nature is rarely wrong.
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