The nurses caught mommy off-guard. She didn't even know that she was allowed to hold me. I was hooked up to the ventilator and always inside the isolette. Mommy and daddy visited me every day and touched me through the isolette doors. But they didn't know that they could take me out and hold me. Maybe some nurses felt more comfortable with taking me out and having the respiratory therapists help adjust my tubes. I don't know. Mommy was so excited! I could tell because when they put me on her chest, her heart was beating so fast! But after awhile, she calmed down. Maybe because she was finally able to hold me.
It was so warm on her chest. I didn't even need a blanket to cover me. Mommy wanted to stay like this forever. So did I. From this day on, mommy would look forward to doing kanagaroo care with me. But I had to make sure I was stable enough and doing really well to spend time outside my isolette. Sometimes, mommy and I would spend as much as 4 straight hours sleeping and rocking in the chair. These were moments that mommy would never forget...
Please don't take me away from mommy...please?
Kangaroo care is a way to hold a naked baby, skin-to-skin, against your bare chest, inside your shirt or covered by a blanket. It's just like a baby kangaroo in his mother's pouch.
When a baby is born at term as expected, holding your baby is something you wouldn't have given much thought to. For most full-term babies, much of early infancy is spent snuggled against their parents' bodies --- feeding in their mothers' arms, falling asleep on their fathers' chests, and being held close up against them throughout the day.
But when a baby is born prematurely, parents don't have many opportunities to do what comes naturally. Maybe that explains the appeal and benefits of kangaroo care, which means nothing more than holding your naked preemie against your own, naked, warm chest.
By the way, real kangaroos really do know something about prematurity. The baby kangaroos they have about once a year are born only partially developed, so they hop into their mother's warm pouch, and continue their development there for months. The human version of kangaroo care originated 20 years ago out of a crisis at a hospital in Bogota, Colombia. Its intensive care nursery was so poorly equipped, and had such a high infection rate, that it started a new program, discharging even the tiniest premature babies within hours or days after birth, to be held and cared for by their mothers at home, kangaroo-style. In the first few years, the number of neonatal deaths significantly decreased, as did the number of abandoned infants.
Since then, the practice of kangaroo care, done voluntarily by mothers and fathers in the ICU nursery, has spread around the world. Research studeis have cinsistently shown that up against the heat of their parents' bodies, these preemies maintain their body temperature as well as, or better than, in an incubator. Some studies also suggested that while being held skin-to-skin, preemies were apt to cry less, and to have less apnea, higher levels of oxygen saturation, and more restful sleep. Babies held skin-to-skin during breastfeeding were more likely to be nursing one month after hospital discharge than those who were fed wearing more than a diaper, and their mothers had more stable milk production. The researchers speculated that skin-to-skin contact helped stimulate lactation.
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