The effect of kangaroo mother care on feeding intolerance in premature infants

Abstract

Objective To investigate the effect of kangaroo mother care on feeding intolerance in premature infants. Methods 102 premature infants were divided into 2 groups, 48 cases were treated with kangaroo mother care based on conventional NICU care as observation group, and 54 cases were treated with conventional NICU care as control group. The signs of frequent vomitting, gastric residuals, abdominal distension, and the incidence of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) were recorded. And the rate of weight gain, time of birth weight recovery, feeding time, and average length of hospital stay were recorded too. Results The number of the cases of frequent vomitting, gastric residuals, abdominal distension, and NEC in the observation group were 4, 3, 6, 2, whose incidences were significantly lower than those in the control group (P<0.05). The time of birth weight recovery, total gastrointestinal feeding, and average length of hospital stay in the observation group were (10.5±1.3)d, (18.4±2.3)d, (30.2±1.6)d, which were all shorter than those in the control group (P<0.05), the rate of daily weight gain in the observation group was (19.3±1.4) g/d, which was higher than that in the control group (P<0.05). Conclusion Kangaroo mother care is of benefit in feeding intolerance of premature infants. Key words: Kangaroo mother care; Premature infant; Feeding intolerance