A week with Kangaroo Mother Care 

My first exposure in assisting parents to perform KMC left me wanting to learn more about it. So, during my medical training I enrolled myself into a KMC course and spent an entire week with parents who had been selected to start KMC. Besides assisting and talking to parents about KMC, I wrote down the list of babies that are benefiting or able to benefit from KMC onto a whiteboard in the ward. Almost immediately, this action raised curiosity from mothers who passed by. A mother to a term baby, was excited to find out that what she and her husband were doing, that is practicing skin to skin contact and direct breastfeeding was actually a part of KMC. She agreed that KMC had brought them together as a family and helped in calming their baby. I also took opportunities to chat with other mothers. From conversations, I realised that the sharing of mothers’ experiences is most valuable in promoting KMC to other mothers. A peer support is created and mothers would appreciate the importance of performing KMC together. Therefore, giving mothers or fathers opportunities to perform KMC is important and this could be achieved by effective communication between healthcare staff and the mothers. I am fortunate that during that week I was a part of the communicating team, addressing the question ‘What is Kangaroo Mother Care?’ and helping parents to realise that the mother kangaroo and its joey images pasted on the walls are not just a symbol of mother-infant bonding. 

(Teng Jo Ann, RUMC Medical student C2016)