Louisa Escobar sits in a rocking chair in the dimly lit room of the neonatal intensive care unit. She lowers the straps of her tank top and places baby Maria-Magdolena, born with a full head of dark hair, on her bare chest.
Escobar covers Maria-Magdolena’s tiny, naked body with a small elephant-print blanket. The baby nuzzles against her mother’s breasts as Escobar begins to slowly rock the chair.
Since Maria-Magdolena was born six weeks prematurely on New Year’s Day, this is how Escobar and her baby have spent much of their time in the unit at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center.
“I know how important it is to have skin-to-skin contact with baby,” Escobar said. “I do that with her as much as possible. I want her to get as healthy as possible.”
That skin-to-skin contact was the focus of a two-week campaign, called Kangaroo-a-thon, in the neonatal intensive care unit at the Vancouver hospital. The event name stems from a practice promoted in the hospital: kangaroo care.
With kangaroo care, the baby, naked except for a diaper, is held in an upright position against a parent’s bare chest. A blanket is draped over the baby’s back, creating a pouch for the baby.
Studies have found numerous benefits to kangaroo care, including stabilizing the baby’s heart rate, promoting a more regular breathing pattern, improving oxygen saturation levels, promoting growth and development, increasing sleep time and weight gain, and decreasing crying. Kangaroo care has also been found to lead to earlier hospital discharge.
“We try to do it as soon as they’re able,” said Kacia Gauthier, NICU nurse manager. “The more, the better.”
Studies have shown babies sleep better with kangaroo care, and during sleep is when the brain grows and develops, Gauthier said. They encourage parents to sit in the quiet and rest with the baby on their chest, she said.
“It’s making sure that baby can get some really good sleep,” Gauthier said.
Research has shown the skin-to-skin contact has benefits for parents, too, including improved bonding and feelings of closeness, increased milk supply and increased confidence.
Tina Stockton of Amboy gave birth to her son, Carson, 10 weeks early on Dec. 2. Carson was delivered by emergency cesarean section. Stockton wasn’t awake when Carson was born and spent several days in the hospital recovering from complications, which kept her from seeing her son as often as she would have liked.
“I think the kangaroo care has given me the opportunity to bond with him,” Stockton said. “It’s weird to have a baby and not take him home.”
Stockton and her 2-year-old daughter, Addison, spend about four hours during the day with Carson — much of that time doing kangaroo care. And when Stockton’s husband, James, gets off work, he goes to the hospital to spend a few hours with Carson.
Kangaroo care has not only helped Stockton and her husband bond with Carson, but has helped introduce Addison to life with a baby brother, Stockton said. Stockton also found the kangaroo care helped her to move past her nervousness about holding her son while he had tubes connected to his small body.
“I was afraid to move him, to touch him,” she said.
Kangaroo care became a point of emphasis in the Legacy Salmon Creek NICU a couple of years ago. The NICU nurses received training on kangaroo care and attended a presentation on the benefits to baby, Gauthier said. When patients come into the NICU, the nurses share that knowledge with parents, and teach them how to pick up their baby and place him or her in position, she said.
This year, the hospital decided to celebrate the practice with the Kangaroo-a-thon.
“It’s really good,” Escobar said. “It will help bring mothers closer to their babies — and their fathers, too.”
Escobar said she hopes the extra skin-to-skin contact will allow her and her husband, Nelson, to take baby Maria-Magdolena to their home in Westport, Ore., sooner than they otherwise would be able.
“Daddy and me, every moment we can, we have her on our chest,” Escobar said.
