What Is Kangaroo Care?

Holding your newborn close to your chest is a special feeling that can help you and your newborn baby form a stronger bond. This form of skin contact touch and mother care is not only helpful for bonding and stability but our study show it is also healthy for your baby's health. Kangaroo care is when you hold your infant against your chest. This allows you and your baby to have skin-to-skin contact. Your baby will be put on your chest for up to a couple of hours with each session. Warmth can be provided by wrapping a blanket shirt or robe around you and your baby skin or using a nesting days carrier. This wrapping of your infant around your chest resembles a mother kangaroo carrying her baby in her pouch giving mother care, which is how the term "kangaroo care" was coined. Hospitals even recommend that mothers do this. Next, we show 7 ways your newborn benefits from kangaroo care and the benefits of skin to skin.

1. Body Temperature:

Newborn infants need help regulating their own temperature (since they aren't in that cozy womb anymore!), and mom or daddy's skin is the perfect heater for their tiny bodies and keeping your baby warm.

2. Brain Development:

Baby brains need oxygen, deep sleep, and a stable heart rate to grow to their best potential and aid their development. Skin-to-skin contact through mother care beats out the incubator in effectively stabilizing their core physiological processes.

3. Weight Gain:

Being cold is no fun, right? Chilly infants have to devote more energy to stay warm, instead of growing. Mom's body heat helps infants stay warm, and simultaneously allows for more frequent breastfeeding, which is always beneficial to growing newborns!

4. Breast Milk Production & Breastfeeding:

When infants and moms are touching, it helps regulates hormones that facilitate breastfeeding. Plus, infants have a heightened sense of smell, allowing them to easily find the nipple if nestled close to their mom.

5. Reduced Stress & Vulnerability to Pain:

What's the best cure and care for infants' stress? Holding them on your chest near your heart! Just 10 minutes of infant skin care time has been shown to reduce cortisol levels and boost oxytocin, helping infants feel calm and safe and reduce pain.

6. Sleep:

Don't you love sleeping in at times? So do your infants love quiet sleep! Our study shows that when they're less stressed, they will sleep longer and wake up less, compared to their incubated counterparts.

7. Postpartum Depression:

The last benefits of kangaroo care is minimizing postpartum depression. It isn't just for infants! After childbirth, mothers experience a lack and imbalance between the glands in their adrenal axis, possibly leading to depression and pain. Holding your newborn close can help regulate the misguided pathways. Cortisol levels are also lowered, making you feel happier.