Comparison of conventional care and kangaroo mother care on very low birth weight babies

Background: In 1978, the concept of kangaroo mother care (KMC) emerged as a compassionate alternative for the care of low birth weight (LBW) infants. In this study, we present the initial findings from a randomized, controlled trial assessing the early outcomes of KMC compared to conventional care methods. Objective: To compare Conventional Care Vs Kangaroo Mother Care on very Low-Birth Weight Babies. Methods: This study employed a randomized controlled trial conducted in the Paediatrics department unit 1 newborn nursery and intensive care unit Services Hospital Lahore. With a duration of 9 months, 104 neonates, 52 in each group, participated based on previous research indicating mean weights at two weeks for kangaroo mother care and conventional care groups. Nonprobability purposive sampling was used. Inclusion criteria encompassed neonates with very low birth weight (<1500 gm), excluding those needing critical care interventions or having congenital anomalies without maternal consent. Data collection involved temperature monitoring and weight measurements, analyzed using SPSS version 26 with significance set at 0.05. Results: Notably, participants in the Conventional Care (CC) group exhibited a significantly longer mean hospital stay (16.1 days) compared to the Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) group (10.8 days). Moreover, the comparison of weight gain in grams from Day 1 to Day 5 between the Conventional Care (CC) and Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) groups indicates statistically significant differences across all days. Participants in the KMC group showed higher mean weight gain throughout the observation period, with Day 1 demonstrating a mean weight gain of 1489.6 grams compared to 1461.2 grams in the CC group (p = 0.04). Conclusion: Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) demonstrates effectiveness in promoting daily weight gain compared to the CC group. Additionally, KMC proves beneficial in shielding neonates from hypothermia. However, insufficient evidence exists to establish a discernible disparity in the incidence of apnea and hospital stay duration between the two groups.