Kangaroo Mother Care, an example to follow from developing countries
Juan Gabriel Ruiz-Peláez, Nathalie Charpak, Luis Gabriel Cuervo
BMJ 2004;329:1179–82
Caring for low birthweight infants imposes a heavy burden on poor countries. An effective
healthcare technique developed in 1978 may offer a solution to this problem and additionally be of use in wealthy countries too.
Introduction
Each year about 20 million infants of low birth weight are born worldwide, which imposes a heavy burden on healthcare and social systems in developing countries. Medical care of low birthweight infants is complex, demands an expensive infrastructure and highly skilled staff, and is often a very disruptive experience for families. Premature babies in poorly resourced settings often end up in understaffed and ill equipped neonatal care units, that may be turned into potentially deadly traps by a range of factors colluding — for example, malfunctioning incubators, broken monitors,overcrowding, nosocomial infections, etc.
In 1978 Edgar Rey, a Colombian paediatrician concerned with the problems arising from a shortage of incubators and the impact of separating women from newborns in neonatal care units, developed Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC), a healthcare technique for low birthweight infants that is at least as effective as traditional care in a neonatal care unit.
A teljes cikk a British Medical Journal oldalán olvasható.
Novemberben még a teljes cikk elérhető volt, ma már csak a Kivonat
