'Kangaroo Mother Care' helping infants survive in middle-, low-income countries

Jan 9 2013

Jennifer James, the founder of Mom Bloggers for Social Good who traveled last month with Save the Children to observe their work in Ethiopia, writes in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "Impatient Optimists" blog, "I was heartened to see that both hospitals we visited, Black Lion hospital in Addis Ababa and Bishoftu hospital in Debre Zeyit, had a dedicated 'Kangaroo Mother Care' (the practice of wrapping ones' baby to ones' bare chest and breastfeeding exclusively) unit." She notes that "according to Save the Children, this type of care reduces newborn deaths by more than 50 percent," and she adds, "In middle- and poor-income countries, Kangaroo Mother Care is keeping babies alive, especially where resources for premature babies are scarce" (1/7).