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Kangaroo care by fathers and mothers: comparison of physiological and stress responses in preterm infants

Journal of Perinatology volume 36, pages 401–404 (2016)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Objective:

To compare physiological and biochemical responses in stable preterm neonates and their parents following kangaroo mother care (KMC) and kangaroo father care (KFC).

Study Design:

We conducted a prospective cross-over design study of stable preterm neonates of <35 weeks gestation in a tertiary Neonatal Unit in Toronto. All neonates received KMC and KFC for 1 h on consecutive days in a random order. Heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, oxygen saturation and salivary cortisol in infants before and after kangaroo care and heart rate, temperature and salivary cortisol in parents before and after kangaroo care were measured. Pairwise comparisons of changes in these measures were analyzed.

Result:

Twenty-six sets of neonates and their parents were studied for physiological parameters, of which 19 had adequate samples for salivary cortisol assessment. The infants had a mean birth weight of 1096 g (s.d.=217) and a mean postmenstrual age at study of 32 weeks (s.d.=2). There were no significant differences in the changes in mean heart rate (P=0.51), temperature (P=0.37), oxygen saturation (P=0.50), systolic blood pressure (P=0.32), mean blood pressure (0.10) and salivary cortisol (P=0.50) before and after KMC or KFC in the neonates. The changes in mean heart rate (P=0.62), temperature (P=0.28) and salivary cortisol (P=0.59) before and after kangaroo care were similar between mothers and fathers.

Conclusion:

No significant differences in physiological and stress responses were identified following KMC or KFC in preterm neonates. KFC may be as safe and as effective as KMC.

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Acknowledgements

The study was supported by internal funding from the Department of Pediatrics, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Author contributions

We thank the participating parents and their babies and the staff of neonatal intensive care unit for help in carrying out the study. We also thank Marianne Bracht, parent resource Nurse, Mount Sinai Hospital for her critical comments on this manuscript and Josie Chundamala, form Maternal-Infant Research Center for editorial help for this manuscript. We would also like to thank Michelle Rodriguez and Dr Azar Azad for their help in analyses of salivary cortisol measurements. Prakesh Shah is supported by an Applied Research Chair in Reproductive and Child Health Services Research from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatrics, NICU, Mount Sinai Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    B K Srinath, J Shah, P Kumar & P S Shah

  2. Department of Pediatrics, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India

    P Kumar

  3. Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    P S Shah

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  1. B K Srinath
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Correspondence to P S Shah.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Srinath, B., Shah, J., Kumar, P. et al. Kangaroo care by fathers and mothers: comparison of physiological and stress responses in preterm infants. J Perinatol 36, 401–404 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/jp.2015.196

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