For nine months of pregnancy, mother and foetus have been one entity. In the womb the baby is warm, fed and protected, and that is all it needs to develop. When it is newborn, it still needs to be warmed, fed and protected, and when placed skin-to-skin on mother’s chest, a newborn baby is in the one place where warmth, food and protection is best available. Human newborns are born very immature, and in a way complete their gestation and development outside the womb, on mother’s chest.

You should never be separated from your baby.

Your KangaCarrier will enable you to do this in the best way!

KMC for full term babies

Though KMC started for low birth weight babies, the principles apply equally to well grown full term babies. For the first few weeks of life, your KangaCarrier will get you and baby off to a good start!

The KangaCarrier was developed in situation where there were no incubators (see the Manama Story).

HOWEVER, in the first hour, it is not used, as the baby during this time needs to do its own thing, what we call self-attachment, or breastcrawl.

Skin-to-skin contact at birth for full term babies is described on this page.

KMC for premature and low birth weight babies

The care of premature and low birth weight infants must be under the supervision of a qualified health professional if at all possible.

The KangaCarrier was originally designed to enable mothers of premature babies to be permanent incubators for their babies. Medical research has shown that maternal infant skin-to-skin contact is better than incubators for keeping babies warm, provides better breathing and heart rate, better breastfeeding and better growth. The problem is a mother has a preconceived idea of an incubator as something stuck in a hospital ward and not allowed to be moved or to be touched. The mother has been an incubator for nine months, and with the KangaCarrier she can now carry on being an incubator. Many premature and low birth weight babies will have special needs and require medical care, all these can be provided together with continuous skin-to-skin contact.

(Please read the notes on “KMC FOR FULL TERM BABIES” above, before going on with this section.)

The practical details for the use of the shirt with preterm and low birth weight babies is on this page.

Disclaimer

The care of premature and lowbirth weight infants should be under the supervision of a suitably qualified health professional. No liability for any adverse event in any way related to the use of the KangaCarrier is accepted by Kangaroo Mother Care Promotions or the author.

The KangaCarrier is the shirt described in this pamphlet. It is available in a variety of colours, which can be seen at KangaCarrier.