Nils Bergman

Dr Nils Bergman

Nils-Jill-Bergman-ResizeDr Nils Bergman calls himself a Public Health Physician, and currently promotes and researches skin-to-skin contact on a fulltime basis.

He is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Paediatrics, and Honorary Research Asscoiate in Human Biology, at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Dr. Bergman was born in Sweden and raised in Zimbabwe, where he also later worked as a mission doctor. He received his medical degree (MB ChB) at the University of Cape Town, and later a Masters in Public Health at the University of the Western Cape. During his years in Zimbabwe he completed a doctoral dissertation (MD, equivalent to PhD) on scorpion stings. He has worked in rural South Africa, Zimbabwe and Sweden, and his last posting was Senior Medical Superintendent of Mowbray Maternity Hospital in Cape Town, overseeing 18000 births per year.

He enjoys sharing the wildlife and nature of Africa with his wife and three grown children.          For more: click here!

 

SKIN-TO-SKIN CONTACT  is the topic that Dr Bergman is the most passionate about. This started in 1988 with his experiences working with lowbirth weight and preterm newborns in Zimbabwe. There were no incubators, but using mother is incubator through skin-to-skin contact, the results were very greately improved. See photo story: Manama story

Skin-to-skin contact is the essential part of Kangaroo Mother Care, and our website www.kangaroomothercare.com  is about skin-to-skin contact for preterm and low birth weight babies, explained to a lay audience.
Many people think “Kangaroo” sounds “alternative”, but there is solid science and clinical research on this subject, and this is presented on our second website    www.skintoskincontact.com    This website focuses on the practuical application of that same science to ALL NEWBORNS !

 

As a medical doctor  – Nils has workd clinically, but primarily as manager of hospitals and health services. The most recent was Mowbray Maternity Hospital in Cape Town which had 7000 births per year at the same time 5 Midwife Obstetric Unit doing 11000 deliveries per year.

As a researcher he is committed to academic excellence and on-going research on the neurosciecne of being born. He is an Honarary Senior Lecturer and Honorary Research Associate at Univ ersity of Cape Town.

 As a lecturer Nils has spoken on Neuroscience of skin to skin contact internationally for the last 10 years….,  and has a passion to make the most recent evidence based medicine  and randomised controlled trials available to health professionals as well as informing the general public.

As a Kangaroo Mother Care expert he worked with BIRTH KMC  since 1988 in Zimbabwe. He brought Kangaroo Mother Care to South Africa and has been on the International Network of Kangaroo Mother Care steering committee  since it started in 1996. He is also a co-author of the Cochrane review: “Early skin-to-skin contact for healthy mothers and their newborn infants”.