The kangaroo mother care method at the teaching hospital of Treichville (Côte d’Ivoire): how effective is it five years after implementation?

Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) is a high-impact practice for reducing infant mortality. It was recently implemented in our paediatric department at Treichville Teaching Hospital. The aim of this study is to analyse mother-kangaroo care activity at Treichville Teaching Hospital after five years of practice. Patients and method: Cross-sectional, analytical study of data on low birthweight babies who stayed in the ‘mother-kangaroo’ subunit of the paediatrics department at the Teaching Hospital of Treicville from 1 March 2019 to 28 February 2024 (i.e. 5 years). The data were analysed using SPSS software version 25, and the chi-square test was used for proportions at the 95% significance level. Results: 55.1% of low birthweight babies (LBW), i.e. 737 LBW admitted to the paediatric ward, were able to benefit from Kangaroo Mother Care. The average age of the mothers of these LBWs was 28.9 years and most were unemployed (42.9%). These newborns were born in a teaching hospital in 34.7% of cases. The transfer of these newborns to Treichville Teaching Hospital was medicalised in 23.3% of cases. They were very premature (GA between 28 and 32 weeks of amenorrhoea) in 59.1% of cases, with an average birth weight of 1535g and a low birth weight of 815g. Only 4.9% of these babies were exclusively breastfed. The average length of stay was 14 days and the average daily weight gain was 29 ±82g. We noted that maternal age (p<0.001), mother's level of education (p<0.001), type of pregnancy (p<0.001) and the weight of the newborn on admission to the KMC (P=0.01) could influence the mean daily weight gain. Conclusion: The kangaroo method is still effective in our practice, with a success rate of over 99%. However, there are a number of difficulties to be noted, in particular quasi-non-exclusive breastfeeding, inadequate nutrition and the fact that mothers are more or less unavailable. Multidisciplinary follow-up would therefore be invaluable, and all these factors constitute the challenges to be met.