A brief history of Kangaroo Mother Care

• 1979 – Dr Rey and Martinez started programme in Bogota, Colombia, in response to shortage of incubators and severe hospital infections.

• 1983 – UNICEF brought attention to the programme, Spanish!

• 1985 – Number of visits from USA, UK and Scandinavia, first English report published in The Lancet by Whitelaw and Sleath, May 1985.

• 1986 onwards – Research in Europe and USA. Implementation widespread in Scandinavia and Germany. Early implementation in Mozambique and other African countries.

• 1991 – First review of research published by Gene Cranston Anderson.

• 1996 – First International Workshop, Trieste, Italy, hosted by Adreano Cattaneo and team. Noted over thirty different terms used, agreed to use KMC (Kangaroo Mother Care), defining the programme of skin-to-skin contact, breastfeeding and early discharge. The term “K C” refers only to intervention “intrahospital maternal-infant skin-to-skin contact”.

• 1998 – First International Conference on Kangaroo Care, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, arranged by Susan Ludington-Hoe

• 1998 – Second International Workshop, Bogota, Colombia, arranged by Nathalie Charpak and team; focus on research and implementation.

• 2000 – Third International Workshop, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

• 2002 – Fourth INK workshop Cape Town, South Africa

• 2004 – Fifth INK workshop , Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

• 2006 – Sixth INK workshop, Cleveland USA

• 2008 – Seventh INK workshop Uppsala, Sweden

• 2010 – Eighth INK workshop, Quebec, Canada