Updated Kangaroo Mother Care content on the Implementation Toolkit

Following the latest World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations on Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC),  The KMC section of the Implementation Toolkit website has now been updated to reflect the latest guidelines in Small and Sick Newborn Care (SSNC). Resources such as the WHO Global Position Paper on KMC,  implementation strategies for the scale-up of KMC in different country contexts, and the iKMC News Series by the  American Academy of Pediatrics have been added. These resources support a paradigm shift among implementers of SSNC that there should be zero separation of mothers and babies immediately after birth.

Implementation research studies such as:

• Immediate Kangaroo Mother Care and Survival of Infants with Low Birth Weight;
• Impact of early Kangaroo Mother Care versus standard care on survival of mild-moderately unstable neonates <2000 grams: A randomised controlled trial;
• Operationalising kangaroo Mother care before stabilisation amongst low birth Weight Neonates in Africa (OMWaNA): protocol for a randomised controlled trial to examine mortality impact in Uganda; and
• Improving Post-discharge Practice of Kangaroo Mother Care: Perspectives from Communities in East-Central Uganda

have all also been added to the site.

The Lancet commented on the importance of KMC for SSNC and the recent publication of the Global Position Paper in a recent Twitter post:

Dr Abiy Seifu Estifanos, Assistant Professor at the School of Public Health, Addis Ababa University, commented on the recently updated Ethiopian National Strategy for KMC in line with the latest WHO recommendations:

It is crucial for developing countries to promote the implementation of KMC on a national level. It is also imperative for developing countries to contribute to optimization of the international guidelines on KMC and keep their national guidelines consistent with the optimized international guidelines. In this regard, the recently updated Ethiopian National strategy for KMC is a step in the right direction to help meet the global targets in neonatal mortality by 2030.

Dr Abiy Seifu Estifanos, Assistant Professor at the School of Public Health, Addis Ababa Univeristy

Have any suggestions for how we can improve our content on Kangaroo Mother Care?

Any reading, tool or learning recommendation, in both English and French, can be submitted for review using our online submission portal. To request a newborn care webinar topic or for any other inquiries, please contact us at newborntoolkit@nest360.org.

This piece was originally published on newborntoolkit.org.