By Kuda Pembere
Immediate Kangaroo Mother Care (IKMC) has the ability of halving neonatal mortality as evidenced at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospital’s Mbuya Nehanda Maternity Hospital over the past month.
Speaking to journalists during a tour of the IKMC unit, specialist neonatologist Dr Alexander Stevenson explained that preterm babies are instantly placed on the mother’s chest before the umbilical cord is cut.
So, here’s my Christian and I have my Christian’s consent to share her story, because in fact we can tell the whole story in just those microcosms here. Christian was born at 28 weeks. Remember, normal gestation is 40 weeks, so that’s three months early, and his birth weight was 1080 grams. For those of you who don’t know, normal would be around 3,000.
“So you have a tiny baby. And what the innovation here is, as soon as Christian was born, within seconds before the umbilical cord is cut, he goes onto his mother’s chest, he gets this special respiratory support that’s called CPAP on his mother’s chest, the cord is clamped later, and they come up here together, mom and baby, we don’t separate them with baby in the incubator and mom somewhere else, and we’re 14 days in and Christian is thriving,” he said.
He noted that current data have shown the neonatal martenity rate dropped by 50 percent.
“And also growth rate. Yeah, I think you already know that. So the first advantage is that we’re reduced neonatal mortality, although it’s early, it’s looking like we’re about halving our neonatal mortality in this weight band from something like 50% to something around 20 to 25%. So that’s already a lot of lives saved just in the few weeks with the open,” Dr Stevenson said.
He noted that a lot of African countries have expressed interest in replicating the IKMC model.
“And our results, we’ve only been going about a month, but it’s having a dramatic effect in reducing neonatal mortality. It’s amazing. There’s a lot of interest from other hospitals in Zimbabwe, but also from across Africa to replicate this model, is not only cheaper, but it’s better, but it’s also more natural, and it has long-term psychological benefits for mothers and for babies,” Dr Stevenson said.
He explained that this initiative was first explored in Gwanda, Zimbabwe in the 1980s and was first implemented in Colombia.
“The fundamental point that we’re trying to make is that this is working, this is a success, and there is great potential to expand this in Zimbabwe and in Africa. And I mean, this is not something that we invented. Although I’m proud to say that this probably is something that Zimbabwe invented. The first reports of this came out of Manana Mission Hospital in Gwanda in the 80s.
“And then that person, Dr. Nils Bergman, just stayed on and stayed on and stayed on promoting KMC, eventually started a big international trial about three years ago with the World Health Organization, and yes, surprise, surprise, it works, and it works well.
“And so we’re proud to take that knowledge on and to be doing it here, but we’re in fact building on successes and lessons learned in Gwanda in the 80s. Although KMC started in Colombia, I think we can be fair to say that immediate kangaroo mother care started here in Zimbabwe. And we’re giving it to the world and succeeding,” Dr Stevenson added.
