Taking Turns

During skin-to-skin care, Lalita's* baby kept briefly stopping breathing. Lalita learned to watch the monitor, and her husband took his turn in providing skin-to-skin.

When Lalita's* baby was registered for Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) in Baran, the baby weighed just over a kilogram and was struggling to maintain enough oxygen in their blood. The baby had been born elsewhere and brought in, and was admitted to the Special Newborn Care Unit (SNCU), the hospital's unit for sick and small newborns. Once the baby was stable enough, the team started skin-to-skin care at the bedside, with a drip still running.

Watching the number

The first sessions were frightening. In just two hours of skin-to-skin care, the baby would have two or three episodes of apnoea, short spells when a newborn stops breathing. The nurses told Lalita to call them straight away whenever the number dropped below 85.

Over the next day or two the apnoea kept coming back. So the nurses taught Lalita to gently stimulate the baby's legs whenever the oxygen level started to fall. Slowly she grew more confident at watching her baby and knowing what to do.

His turn

Her husband was just as involved. He would come into the KMC room himself and say, "Aap mujhe laga do": put the baby on me (translated from Hindi). Between them, the two parents gave close to nine or ten hours of skin-to-skin care every day. They kept a close eye on feeding and on how the baby was positioned.

The nurses handled every episode calmly. They kept watching the baby, kept guiding the parents, and made sure the family did not panic when the baby stopped breathing.

On 26 September the baby went home, weighing 1,255 grams.

Kangaroo Mother Care is usually told as a mother's story. In Baran it took two parents working together to give their baby what was needed.

*Name changed to protect privacy