When the Milk Ran Short

Sep 2

2 min read

Yashoda's* baby was born on 10 July at 9.50pm, at 31 weeks and 3 days,

weighing 990 grams. Born at another facility, the baby reached the Special

Newborn Care Unit at Banswara too unstable to be held. As soon as that

changed, the KMC team registered the baby and started Kangaroo Mother Care

inside the unit itself.

Yashoda took to it straight away. On an average day she gave her baby

seven to eight hours of skin-to-skin care.

The problem she had not expected

Her milk came well at first, then her supply fell away. She told the KMC

team she was worried she could not give her baby enough. They acted on it.

Yashoda was referred to the hospital's Lactation Management Unit and began

going three times a day, and the KMC nurses taught her massage techniques

and other practices to help her supply recover.

She kept going, and the nurses, doctors and unit staff kept watching the

feeding, the Kangaroo Mother Care and the baby's progress together. The

baby became noticeably more active and put on weight, going home on 15

August at 1,320 grams after a stay the team recorded as three and a half

weeks.

For a baby born at 990 grams, weight is slow work and every gram is

evidence. What Yashoda's stay shows is what Kangaroo Mother Care needs

beside it: somebody watching the mother as closely as the baby, and a

lactation service to send her to on the day the problem appears.