Video:Kangaroo Care Tips and Techniques

Transcript:Kangaroo Care Tips and Techniques

Hi, my name is Rachel Cruise. I'm the NICU lactation consultant here at The Bristol Meyers Squibb Children's Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. And I'm speaking on behalf of About.com to talk to you today about the importance of Kangaroo Care for the pre-term baby.

What Is Kangaroo Care?

Kangaroo Care is basically, infant skin to skin on the mother's chest. And what we're looking for is we're looking for the baby to bond with the mom. That's one of the major benefits is the bonding that takes place in the Kangaroo Care position. We're also looking for the infant's respiratory system, temperature, heart rate, all of those body systems, and even their glucose levels become more stable when they're in the kangaroo position.

Kangaroo Care Position

So, the baby goes on mom's chest. The baby only wears a diaper and can have a hat on. And, the breastbone of the baby should be lined up around the breast bone of the mom. One of the cheeks in on one of mom's breasts, and the baby directly inside mom's shirt. Mom can wear a hooded sweatshirt or something with a zip up, something with a button down - even something with a lower neckline that the baby can just slip right in and be placed in that position skin to skin with mom, that you're facilitating attachment parenting.

What Is Attachment Parenting

And what attachment parenting means is that the mother and baby are bonding together. This can have developmental implications for even later, way past the time that the baby's even in the NICU.

Benefits of Kangaroo Care

Some of the current research talks about even just an hour a day of Kangaroo Care can really promote these attachment behaviors between the mom and baby. They're more in sync with each other. Basically mom's able to recognize the baby's needs. The baby's able to convey their needs to the mother more because they're so used to each other. What we see here is that we see the moms who participate in kangaroo care, very early on they feel very comfortable handling their babies. They start assuming ownership of that baby. And that's a piece that's really missing when we're looking at the relationship sometimes between the NICU mother and their pre-term baby.

Thanks for watching. To learn more, visit us on the Web at About.com.