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April 14, 2011

Kangaroo kids: Using parents as incubators becoming more common

By Joe Hadsall Globe Features Editor

JOPLIN, Mo. — Donna Gates has worked in neonatal intensive care units for 30 years. She’s watched more and more technology find its way into her units in order to help prematurely born infants heal and grow.    

But as technology has advanced, one of the more successful treatments doesn’t take a single wire, apparatus or medicine. All it takes is a willing parent to hold the infant on her chest.

“Moms are wonderful incubators,” said Gates, a neonatal nurse practitioner at Freeman Health System. “They are so much warmer than being in open air.”

Because babies aren’t able to control their body temperatures until about 36 weeks old, incubators are used to ensure a warm environment for newborns.

However, many neonatal units have taken babies out of the incubators and laid them on the chests of their parents.

This process, called “kangaroo care,” has become popular over the past 10 years. Gates said she understands why, because it benefits both infants and parents.

“When a child is in neonatal care, the parents have a detachment,” Gates said. “This becomes something special for parents. And it’s wonderful for babies, because they become more stable, they grow better and sleep better.”

A kangaroo care session involves placing the baby on a parent’s chest Ñ mom or dad. Instead of on its back in an incubator, the baby lies chest to chest with its parent.

Sessions can last about an hour, or longer if the newborn remains stable. The skin-to-skin contact warms the baby, and it hears the heartbeat of its parent. As for the parents, they get some bonding with their newborn before she’s able to come home.

The practice has roots in Bogota, Colombia, where in 1978 a doctor with the Mother and Child Institute suggested it could ease a shortage of doctors, nurses and incubators. It has since spread to nations of all kinds of development, from third-world countries to high-tech nations.

Freeman has used the practice for about the past 10 years, Gates said. It’s hard to find any flaws in it.

Some earlier studies of its use abroad suggested kangaroo care of low-birth weight infants reduces severe illness, infection and breast-feeding problems; improves mother-baby bonding; and perhaps even saves lives. Other studies said there was not enough scientific evidence to declare skin-to-skin an effective alternative to standard care for low-birth weight infants.

But the American Academy of Pediatrics is pro-kangaroo care for stable premature infants in neonatal intensive care units, according to a report from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

“The surprising benefits of kangaroo care for the infant include warmth, stability of heartbeat and breathing, increased time spent in the deep sleep and quiet alert states, decreased crying, increased weight gain and increased breast-feeding. These benefits are apparent even when kangaroo care occurs for only a few minutes each day,” the academy said on its website.

And though anecdotal data is not very scientific, Gates said the looks of babies with their parents make for a convincing argument that kangaroo care is a good procedure.

“It’s just sweet to see these babies settle in,” Gates said. “It’s a precious experience.”

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