NATIONAL NEWS - With the celebration of World Prematurity day on 17 November, there has been a huge focus on the benefits of Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) as it is regarded as a critical intervention for babies born prematurely.
KMC refers to the practice of providing continuous skin-to-skin contact between mother and baby and encouraging exclusive breastfeeding.
The Western Cape Government has adopted the Mother Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, which requires that all babies must be placed in the skin to skin position immediately after birth and that the baby should latch to the breast within the first hour after birth. Research has proven that this intervention increases the chances of exclusive breastfeeding long term.
The advocacy and education around breastfeeding for mothers is another important factor contributing towards sustaining a mother baby friendly hospital.
In the Western Cape, Hospitals and clinics strive to adhere to the following principals in order to create a culture of successful breastfeeding with patients:
- Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff
- Train all health care staff in skills necessary to implement this policy
- Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and management of breastfeeding
- Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within a half hour after birth
- Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain breastfeeding even if they should be separated from their infants
- Give newborn no food or drink other than breastmilk, unless medically indicated
- Practice rooming-in, allow mothers and infants to remain together 24 hours a day
- Encourage breastfeeding on demand
- Give no artificial teats or pacifiers (also called dummies or soothers) to breastfeeding infants
- Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support groups and refer others to them on discharge from hospital or clinic.
If mothers are unable to breastfeed, they are encouraged to express their milk allowing them to cup feed this to their babies. The Mowbray Maternity Hospital for instance have a milk bank on site where donated breast-milk is received, pasteurized and cup fed to their premature babies. Donor milk is especially targeted for the very low birth weight (\<1,5kg) premature babies and has improved survival.
Mowbray Maternity Hospital is a referral centre providing specialised Obstetric and Neonatal care to mothers and babies referred in from the Midwife Obstretic Units (MOU) in Retreat, Falsebay, Gugulethu and Hanover park and Mitchells Plain. The continuum of care is supported by a well-established Outreach and Support programme to the MOUs. There is emphasis on providing a seamless service across various levels of care. An example of how this benefits patients is that babies with special risk factors, once discharged, will be screened for follow up, and referred for ongoing care if needed.
The focus on the First Thousand Days of every newborn’s life requires access to quality antenatal care, followed by a safe birth, and post-natal support to the mother, baby and family. As healthcare workers, the challenge is to integrate the various quality improvement initiatives like MBFHI, KMC, Skin to Skin, Better Births, etc. available to provide the best outcomes for mothers and babies.
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