Kangaroo care versus incubator care in the management of well preterm infants--a pilot study

This pilot study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of the kangaroo care method with current, mainly incubator-based care in managing well preterm infants in a tertiary level hospital in a developing country. Altogether, 74 infants (37 per group) were consecutively allocated to receive either kangaroo care or incubator care. After adjusting for age and weight on admission to the study, we found that infants in the kangaroo care group gained twice as much weight per day (20.8 vs 10.2 g, p = 0.0001), had a shorter stay in hospital (16.6 vs 20.7 days, p = 0.0457) and had a better survival rate (0% vs 9% deaths). Also, they were ill less frequently, but after adjusting for age and weight this difference was not significant. This pilot study suggests that the kangaroo care method has major advantages over incubator care of preterm infants in our hospital. Hospitals which cannot use incubators optimally may find kangaroo care to be a better method of improving perinatal and neonatal morbidity and mortality.