Research Paper On Kangaroo Care

Initiation of Kangaroo Care Following Birth
Rachel Bancroft
St. David’s School of Nursing
Texas State University
NURS 4441: Leadership and Management of Nursing Care

Initiation of Kangaroo Care Following Birth
Background
In a typical year, 1 in 10 babies are born preterm (World Health Organization, 2017). Preterm infants are newborns born before 37 weeks that are vulnerable to a variety of complications post-delivery. The lives of more than 75% of premature babies can be improved with certain initiatives following birth, which improve the chances of survival and health outcomes (World Health Organization, 2017). In order to improve safety and quality of patient care, nurses take part in quality improvement. This is a continuous
Integration of kangaroo care into routine post-delivery care also creates a positive and beneficial experience for the mother and her infant (Haxton, Doering, Gingras, & Kelly, 2012). Kangaroo care is a complementary medicine approach to practice and with an increasing amount of evidence about the positive effects and outcomes, is becoming a rapidly accepted practice. Standard guidelines for kangaroo care are encourage that the mother and infant remain skin-to-skin for at least 60 minutes immediately after birth (Hubbard & Gattman, 2017). In an urban hospital in central Austin, this time often is referred to as the “golden hour.” It is a critical time for both the infant and mother because the placement of the infant skin-to-skin, with total skin contact, has many significant benefits. Research shows that immediate skin-to-skin contact helps the infant with thermoregulation and cardio-respiratory stability, as well as, facilitates breastfeeding which indirectly decreases the risk for maternal postpartum hemorrhage (Myra & Walls, 2015). Not only does kangaroo care benefit the infant immediately postpartum, the implementation on skin-to-skin contact results in fewer infections at six and twelve months of age and enhanced bonding between mother and
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