Celebrating the Kangaroo Mother Care, KMC Awareness Day in Thimphu, the health ministry reaffirmed its commitment to advance KMC practice across all healthcare services in the country. KMC is all about providing skin-to-skin contact and exclusive breastfeeding for the health of a newborn. Studies indicate that KMC can save up to 450,000 newborn deaths annually.
According to the health ministry, the KMC practice is a low-cost intervention with proven benefits to nurture and protect a newborn from infection.
The practice fosters emotional and physical bonding between parents and newborns.
The ministry said it can reduce deaths among newborns by up to 40 per cent, and cut infections by nearly 50 per cent. Additionally, it can lower the risk of hypothermia, a dangerously low body temperature in a child, by over 70 per cent.
A Neonatologist with the Mother and Child Hospital in the capital said that the hospital trains about 20 to 30 caregivers in KMC practice monthly.
“It was practised in the newborn intensive care units in Bhutan since the late 90s and early 2000s. But then the nationwide scale-up of this programme happened since 2017, when we had what we call the early essential newborn care and kangaroo mother care training programme with the support from the World Health Organisation. And it has now been scaled up even down to the primary health centres,” said Dr. Dinesh Pradhan, Neonatologist, JDWNRH.
“KMC is particularly helpful for new parents having their first child. Moreover, it helps in the growth and development of a child,” said Kinley Penjor, Father.
“My child was born premature, and my wife was home recovering. When we practice KMC, it increases the weight of our child, and a child becomes healthy. KMC helps the child drink more milk,” said Sukraj Darjee, Father.
The event was celebrated on the theme “In Your Arms, I Thrive.”
According to health officials, every caregiver at the Mother and Child Hospital in Thimphu is trained in KMC before they are discharged.
Singye Dema
Edited by Phub Gyem
