KMC is a quality service provided to low birth babies. This is a well recognized method by WHO.
Premature or under weight babies are kept in KMC ward for skin-to-skin contact with his/her mother or care taker to maintain their body temperature. Room temperature is well maintained in the KMC ward. A KMC chair is available for the mother to sit.
As per the severity of the baby, breast milk is fed though the use of NG tube or Nifty cup. Routine checkup, weight measurement and oxygen are provided as per the requirement of the baby. Observation is done for growth monitoring of the baby and the records are maintained on a daily basis.
There are several causes of premature birth. Under age of mothers (less than 20 years), inadequate balanced diet, low height and hormonal disorders are the major causes of premature birth. One of the main causes of low birth weight is premature birth ( birth before 37 weeks). Low birth babies are not able to maintain body temperature even if they are wrapped properly with warm cloths. So, they need skin to skin contact. Babies born after 22 weeks of pregnancy having at least 500 grams weight could survive if they are born at a hospital. Health facility should provide quality services to save lives of low birth weight babies. Although several district hospital of Nepal are applying Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC), only few have special KMC wards. Bharatpur hospital is one of them.
The four bedded KMC unit at Bharatpur Hospital was established in March 2019 with the in-kind support from Golden Community.
