Thessaloniki: Innovative “kangaroo care” for premature babies at Papageorgiou Hospital

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It is a technique for caring for premature and low birth weight newborns which also has a positive effect on the mother

The innovative ‘kangaroo care’ model for premature newborns applies to the 2nd University Neonatology Clinic and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of the Papageorgiou hospital, embracing this year’s message of World Prematurity Day (November 17) which urges: “The parent’s hug: a powerful treatment. Facilitate skin-to-skin contact from birth.” It is a technique for caring for premature and low birth weight newborns, in which there is skin-to-skin contact of the newborn with the mother, starting at birth. In this way, the premature baby has, on the one hand, greater chances of surviving and not getting an infection, and on the other hand, better neurodevelopment.

According to the director of the Clinic and the Unit, Professor of Pediatrics-Neonatology AUTH Elisavet Diamanti, the specific care it also has a positive effect on the mother on breastfeeding, depression and stress. However, many ICUs do not yet have the capacity for this type of care.

“Our Clinic and Unit embrace the view that the premature newborn and his family need our constant attention and love. The aim of World Prematurity Day is to raise public awareness of prematurity, to highlight the problems faced by premature babies and their families and to emphasize that prematurity is a public health issue. One in ten newborns is born prematurely – at least 3 weeks earlier than the date it should have been born – and the more immature a premature baby is, the greater the chance of having problems”, emphasizes Ms. Diamanti, underlining the need to create specialists areas of care for newborns with problems to improve perinatal and neonatal morbidity and mortality.

She concludes that “today, more and more very immature newborns are surviving with a good quality of life. But there is the possibility, especially the extremely premature, have long-term neurodevelopmental problems. These newborns and their families need support from the state and from all of us to endure the difficult path ahead of them”.

RES-EMP

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