International Kangaroo Care Awareness Day
International Kangaroo Care Awareness Day
May 15, 2018
The importance of Kangaroo Care in the NICU can change if you will bring your baby home to when you bring your baby home. I know that seems quite dramatic. Let me explain.
Our Preemiest (is that even a word) of preemies to our newborns yearn for human touch. Don’t you and I yearn for human interactions from a warm embrace to a handshake to a smile. All can change how we feel for the day. Well the same principle goes for our babies as well.
Regular Skin to Skin (Kangaroo Care) is even more important and vital to our babies in the NICU.
Today is International Kangaroo Care Day started in 2011 by Yamile Jackson and why May 15th? Simple its her son, Zachery, birthday!
Help Support and Raise Awareness for Kangaroo Care by going to https://kangaroo.care/ and read my story (Ill also post it here) and also other families Kangaroo Care Stories!
My Kangaroo Story:
My daughter was born at 21 weeks and 4 days weighing 410 grams (14.4oz.)
She was very very sick and was on high oxygen levels with a very minimal amount of contact being given to her because her skin was so fragile to touch.
When my doctor wrote the orders for me to start Kangaroo Care I was in complete shock.
I had my routine of coming into the NICU, getting my daily update from the doctors and nurses going to the pumping station and updating all friends and family on her care. That day was the very first time I got to hold my baby!
She was 6 weeks old and on a breathing machine called “The Jet”. The Jet pumps tiny breaths at a very high rate to keep the lungs open and it vibrates like crazy. The Nurse and the Respiratory Therapist helped to move her and placed her on my chest. They taped her breathing tubes to my gown I was wearing so not to have the tube slip.
The doctor wrote that I could hold her as long as I wanted but said she may not respond well and need more oxygen. If that was the case, then for me only to hold her for 30 minutes.
Well, that day I held her for over 2 hours! Not only did she do great but her need for oxygen actually decreased.
From that day I held her everyday for a minimum on 1 hour but would hold her for as long as I could. I had to pump and that was the only reason I couldn’t hold her for any longer than the 2 hours.
Without Kangaroo Care I know her stay would have been much harder. Not only did her dependence of oxygen decrease while I was holding her but I felt more like her Mom.
More like I was actually taking care of her because I was showing her that I Love Her by holding her Skin to Skin.
