Woke up with migraine around 9:30 am. Bilateral pain, moderate, NS.  No foods eaten prior to start. Could be yesterday's migraine lingering.

Started about 11 am. Took 600 mg of Ibuprofen at noon. Bilateral, NS, moderate pain. Presently 4 pm and still feel minor pain.  

Foods eaten:

3 blueberry pancakes with syrup
creamy italian chicken with rice
grapes

     Did you know that there are tiny million dollar babies born everyday all over the world? These premature infants, or preemies are born and survive against all odds in Neonatal Intensive Care Units and Children's hospitals. They are given top-notch care with the best medical technology available, yet often the most simple treatments can have the biggest impact. A lesser known course of treatment called Kangaroo Care is making waves at hospitals around the country.  Today I will explain what Kangaroo Care is, A brief History of where it began, and the benefits of Kangaroo Care for the developing infant, and also the benefits for the new parent. 

According to Brigham and Women's hospital in Boston Massachussetts, in a patient handout on the topic, Kangaroo Care, also known as skin-to-skin holding is the practice of holding a newborn baby directly against bare skin. The parent should wear a loose fitting or a button up shirt when coming to hold thier infant. The parent is given a comfortable chair to sit in near the baby's crib or isolette. The infant dressed only in a diaper and hat is placed tummy down on the parents bare chest. If the parent wears a button front shirt, the clothing is buttoned up around the child leaving only the head peeking out, forming a pouch, similar to how a Kangaroo carries a joe, hence the term Kangaroo Care. Childbirth Solutions Incorporated's "Pocket Guide to Kangaroo Care" states that it should be practiced for at LEAST 30 minutes each day and gradually increased until the child is being held for 2-3 hours each day. Prematurity.org states that during Kangaroo Care the infant shoulod be placed tummy-to-tummy with the parent, between the mothers breasts or on the fathers chest. It also says that the infants head should be turned to one side, with the ear just above the parents heart so the child can hear the heartbeat of it's mom or dad.
 

Kangaroo Care was first practiced in South America where babies were being sent home being carried 24 hours a day between thier mothers breasts and were fed only breastmilk. It all began because of a lack of medical equipment and funding for the hospitals and also due to a large risk of infections contracted at the hospital during that time. In the 1980's the mortality rate for premature babies was 70%. Two Columbian Neonatologists, Dr Edgar Rey, and Dr Hector Martinez began prescribing Kangaroo Care as a course of treatment for thier infant patients in 1983. Since then the mortality rate for premature infants in Columbia has fallen from 70 to 30 %.  After many studies were conducted in SOuth America, Kangaroo care quickly spread to many other countries, including the United States. Over the last 10 years, the number of NICU's practicing this method has risen from about 70 to over 200 hospitals.

The benefits of Kangaroo Care are numerous. One of the most obvious being providing the newborn with warmth. According to research done at the Karolinska Institute of Sweden, providing a child with Kangaroo Care can restore an infants body temperature much quicker than  high tech incubators or warming beds. Babies born too early are prone to having a low core body temperature and also prone to having problems in regulating thier body temperatures. This makes the pre-term infant much more susceptible to becoming hypothermic. Maintaining a steady body temperature causes the infant to burn less calories and helps them maintain body weight. While kangarooing the infant absorbs excess body heat from the parent. Keeping the childs body temp. stable reduces the risks of the child getting cold stress, which can cause disruptiopns in breathing and also in heart rate. There is a risk of overheating the baby during Kangaroo Care, so regular monitoring of the infants body temperature is very important.

While helping keep body temperature stable, kangarooing also helps regulate breathing and heart rates. Babies experience significantly less episodes of a decreased heart rate. or often none at all. Dips in the heartrate are very common in the premature infant and being close to the parents soothes the infant and alleviates this problem. Studies being conducted in Sweden are showing that even full term newborns with respiratory illness benefit from kangaroo care. Babies who would  normally have been placed on a mechanical ventilator to assist breathing were are instead being placed on the mothers chest directly after birth and are left there until the respiratory distress has gone away. In most cases it is less than 48 hours.
 

Mothers who kangaroo thier babies often find they they are able to produce more breastmilk and are able to breastfeed thier child for an extended period of time. IN a study done in June of 1998, Dr A Gomez found that infants being held skin to skin for at leasat 50 minutes everyday were 8 times more likely to breastfeed spontaneously. Preemies, especially ones born more than 5 weeks early feed more easily from the breast than the bottle. Thier underdeveloped reflexes make it hard for them to regulate the flow of milk from a bottle, and that increases the risk of aspiration, or breathing liquid into the lungs.
   

 In addition to the medical benefits of kangaroo care, there are also emotional benefits. Kangarooing not only benefits the child, but also the parents. Mothers and Fathers claim to have a better feeling of closeness with thier preemie despite all the frightening barriers of a neonatal intensive care unit. Mothers are able to achive a better bond and feel more relaxed when they are able to hold thier baby which also plays a role in the breastmilk production increasing. Some would agree that a baby can sense it's parents mood and if the parent is calm and content the child will be as well. Kangaroo care helps to relieve the feeling of seperation and anxiety experienced by parents having a child in intensive care. Parents who kangaroo thier child are often more involved and feel more confident and comfortable when caring for thier infant once they have left the hospital.  Being able to actually do something to help thier child can provide a pareny with the ability to cope with the stress and emotions of having a high risk infant. It also makes the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit seem like less of a scary place.
 

There are very few risks associated with kangaroo care, and most doctors would agree that the benefits are far greater than any risks associated. The biggest risks are moving an unstable infant and overheating. Close monitoring by a nurse of a doctor can successfully eliminate all the dangers of these things occuring.
Kangaroo Care is not a widely known practice...because not all hospitals allow extremely small infants to be moved. Some doctors still maintain the old fashioned mindset of putting an infant in an incubator and not allowing the parent to touch them. Some of these doctors believe that the risks of infection form human contact is too great. In the future Kangaroo Care will probably become the norm, once more studies are finished and follow up on.

Today we have explored The topic of Kangaroo Care. We've talked about how it is performed and We've gone through where it began and why it became popular. We've discussed the benefits of practicing it such as increased breastmilk production and an overall stability in the infants vital signs. Lastly we talked about the emotional benefits and increased closeness felt in parents who are allowed to have that bond with thier child. In conclusion, Kangaroo Care is an effective form of treatment for a premature newborn that allows  the parent to actively and positively influence the health and well being of thier baby.Because of very few risks and many benefits, Knagaroo care is an easy way to iuncrease the odds of having a healthy preemie. With increased awareness and correct information, Kangaroo Care will become even more widespread and continue to help sick children, as well as help ease the immense stress on a parent with a sick child.