Perception and practice of Kangaroo Mother Care after discharge from hospital in Kumasi, Ghana: A longitudinal study

Abstract

BackgroundThe practice of Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) is life saving in babies weighing less than 2000 g. Little is known about mothers' continued unsupervised practice after discharge from hospitals. This study aimed to evaluate its in-hospital and continued practice in the community among mothers of low birth weight (LBW) infants discharged from two hospitals in Kumasi, Ghana.MethodsA longitudinal study of 202 mothers and their inpatient LBW neonates was conducted from November 2009 to May 2010. Mothers were interviewed at recruitment to ascertain their knowledge of KMC, and then oriented on its practice. After discharge, the mothers reported at weekly intervals for four follow up visits where data about their perceptions, attitudes and practices of KMC were recorded. A repeated measure logistic regression analysis was done to assess variability in the binary responses at the various reviews visits.ResultsAt recruitment 23 (11.4%, 95%CI: 7.4 to 16.6%) mothers knew about KMC. At discharge 95.5% were willing to continue KMC at home with 93.1% willing to practice at night. 95.5% thought KMC was beneficial to them and 96.0% beneficial to their babies. 98.0% would recommend KMC to other mothers with 71.8% willing to practice KMC outdoors.At first follow up visit 99.5% (181) were still practicing either intermittent or continuous KMC. This proportion did not change significantly over the four weeks (OR: 1.4, 95%CI: 0.6 to 3.3, p-value: 0.333). Over the four weeks, increasingly more mothers practiced KMC at night (OR: 1.7, 95%CI: 1.2 to 2.6, p = 0.005), outside their homes (OR: 2.4, 95%CI: 1.7 to 3.3, p < 0.001) and received spousal help (OR: 1.6, 95%CI: 1.1 to 2.4, p = 0.007). Household chores and potentially negative community perceptions of KMC did not affect its practice with odds of 0.8 (95%CI: 0.5 to 1.2, p = 0.282) and 1.0 (95%CI: 0.6 to 1.7, p = 0.934) respectively. During the follow-up period the neonates gained 23.7 sg (95%CI: 22.6 g to 24.7 g) per day.ConclusionMaternal knowledge of KMC was low at outset. Once initiated mothers continued practicing KMC in hospital and at home with their infants gaining optimal weight. Continued KMC practice was not affected by perceived community attitudes.

Practical application of kangaroo mother care in preterm infants: clinical characteristics and safety of kangaroo mother care

“…Because our KMC protocol includes maternal counseling for breastfeeding and drug-taking, it may have contributed to the increased rate of breastfeeding in the present study. Previous studies have shown that KMC can promote breastfeeding and contribute to longer breastfeeding in preterm infants [16,17,20,25,26,30]. In the present study, the MRSA colonization rate did not increase significantly after KMC in the study infants.…”

Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Kangaroo Mother Care by Postnatal Mothers who Gave Birth to Preterm and Low Birth Weight Babies in Public Hospitals, Eastern Ethiopia

“…This is comparable with a study in Malawi in which mothers had high level of knowledge about the significant benefits of Kangaroo Mother Care even if 84% were not aware of the services prior to their hospitalisation [13]. Our finding was lower than that of a Ghanaian study in which 90% of mothers mentioned KMC as beneficial strategy for them and their low birth weight babies [14].…”

“…In India, 55.4 percent of the women initiated KMC within 72 h of birth [15], in Bangladesh the mean time for initiation of KMC was 1.1 h [16] but in Ghana 84.6% started within 24 h [14]. On the other hand, the mean duration of KMC per day in this study was 2 h. This finding was better than that of 32 min in a day in Iran [17] and comparable with the findings of India in which the duration of KMC was 1, 2 and 12 h as felt by 52%, 19.6% and 6.5% of mothers respectively [18].…”

Utility of kangaroo mother care in preterm and low birthweight infants

“…22,24,37,59 Expansion of kangaroo mother care Based on increasing evidence of the positive effects and outcomes of KMC, and the emerging understanding of the complexity of the physiology involved, KMC practice has been rapidly accepted worldwide, in both high-and low-resource countries. KMC has also been introduced in countries such as Ethiopia, 60 Ghana, 61 Madagascar, 62 Malawi, 63,63 Nigeria 65 and South Africa. 31 The safety, feasibility, acceptability and cost-effectiveness of KMC has been demonstrated in all these countries.…”