Brief report: Maternal kangaroo care for neonatal pain relief: a systematic narrative review

To appraise critically and to synthesize existing Maternal Kangaroo Care (MKC) intervention studies for neonatal procedural pain.

Four electronic databases were systematically searched and eligible studies selected by two independent reviewers. Of 93 abstracts, 12 studies met the inclusion criteria. Findings were extracted and methodology assessed based on best-synthesis methodology.

There is evidence that MKC can significantly reduce pain from a single pain procedure in full-term infants and stable preterm infants (>26 weeks GA). All 12 MKC studies reported significant reduction in pain behavior but measures of heart rate varied. However, current approaches to data analysis cannot tell us of the magnitude of treatment effects.

Future studies need to clearly define their intervention, provide a guiding framework, explain their study methods and analyses and report effect sizes. This will help strengthen validity of the intervention and support recommendations for clinical application.