Summary

Giving an infant you motherly and loving touch shows many emotional and physical benefits to both you and your baby. Touching you newborn can ease their exit from your womb, providing a smooth and reassuring transition into the world; it reduces the stress that an infant may experience from the delivery. Your womb has provided security for you infant and from this he/she has developed a sensory of touch when their skin touches the inside of your womb. For 9 months, he/she has become utterly dependent on your touch. So, given the sudden gush of wind after delivery and the new environment that your infant will face, your touch will provide the same security to your offspring especially if it is done through a Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC).

The Need to Touch and Be Touched

It is said that to touch and be touched is a basic need that every human being needs. It has ben said that touch is equally important as shelter and food; whilst touch also helps stimulates brain function and activity. More so, a touch is said to communicate emotions faster than gestures; while it is also known to release hormones called oxytocin and to reduce cortisol. The former is known to help in the creation of specific sensations that leads to trust while the latter is a hormone associated to the creation of stress.

Studies show that children who are deprived of touch lack emotional stability and can grow up and develop social problems. Needless to say, children who grow up lacking emotional security will not fully thrive physically or mentally as well as those children that do. Based on these reasons and many other known benefits, touch is one of the essential components of Kangaroo Mother Care.

Kangaroo Mother Care’s Healing Touch

Kangaroo Mother Care is not only recommended for infants with preemie, low birth weighs and full-term infants. As the term Kangaroo Mother Care suggests, it mimics the way a Kangaroo holds and protects her joey, by providing warmth and comfort in the safety of her pouch. While for human mothers, an infant is positioned on her chest in between her bosoms.

Positioning the infant the Kangaroo Mother Care way makes skin-to-skin contact touching possible. It is suggested that a mother of full term baby’s can perform Kangaroo Mother Care for at least an hour a day everyday or as the infant will tolerate it. It follows that a mother holding and touching her infant longer and more frequent helps release her infant’s oxytocin hormones thereby enhancing their sense of security. Fathers and other family members can perform Kangaroo Mother Care. In fact, it is highly recommended.

Aside from this, holding your infant close the Kangaroo Mother Care way has been shown to be more effective than using an incubator. Infants born prematurely develop faster if held and caressed regularly and through KMC they maintain body temperature. Research has also shown that untouched babies develop an alternative way on combating or releasing stress. Thus, it can eventually lead to various medical or even psychological problems later on like sleep disorders, Attention Deficit Disorder and other conditions.

Kangaroo Mother Care is also a safe and free method of caring for your newborn. There are no known negative effects of providing this type of motherly care; rather it only has positive effects such as:

• Your baby held as long as they will tolerate helps your infant breastfeed more often as compared to babies who are not receiving Kangaroo Mother Care.

• Your baby gains more weigh faster and this could also mean early hospital discharge.

• Preemies or babies born prematurely have weak immune systems that could lead to infections. Kangaroo Mother Care has been proven to improve your infant’s immunity thereby saving your infant from enduring infections, allergies, and other complications.

• Performing Kangaroo Mother Care helps regulate your infant’s bodily temperature. Your body can adjust to what your infant needs.

• Holding your baby close to your chest synchronizes the rhythm of your heart beat to that of your infant’s. Thus, it is cited as a possible reason why babies who are given Kangaroo Mother Care have more regular and normal heartbeats than those who have not given Kangaroo Mother Care and are in incubators.

• Babies with breathing problems are also relieved after receiving Kangaroo Mother Care; and the same goes if babies experience sleeping problems. Mothers and infants synchronize their sleeping rhythm.