Kangaroo care

Kangaroo mother care (KMC),^[1] which involves skin-to-skin contact (SSC), is an intervention to care for premature or low birth weight (LBW) infants. The technique and intervention is the recommended evidence-based care for LBW infants by the World Health Organization (WHO) since 2003.^[1][2]

In the 2003 WHO Kangaroo Mother Care practical guide,^[1] KMC is defined as a "powerful, easy-to-use method to promote the health and well-being of infants born preterm as well as full-term", with its key components being:

• Early, continuous, and prolonged SSC between the mother and the baby;
• Exclusive breastfeeding (ideally);
• Initiated in a hospital setting and can be continued at home;
• Allows for early discharge of the baby to the family;
• After discharge, includes close followup 

The early KMC technique was first presented by Rey and Martinez in 1983,^[1] in Bogotá, Colombia, where it was developed as an alternative to inadequate and insufficient incubator care for those preterm newborn infants who had overcome initial problems and required only to feed and grow. Decades of research and development, much from researchers from emerging economies, has improved upon the initial work and has documented that modern evidence-based KMC lowers infant mortality and the risk of hospital-acquired infection, increases weight gain of infants, increases rates of breastfeeding, protects neuromotor and brain development of infants, and improves mother-infants bonding, among other benefits.^[3] Today, the WHO recommends "Kangaroo mother care (KMC) for preterm or low-birth-weight infants should be started as soon as possible after birth"^[2] based on "high-certainty evidence".