What is Kangaroo Care in Neonatal Intensive Care?

Kangaroo Care:

Kangaroo care involves holding your infant close to the chest. This enables mother and the infant to touch each other on the skin. The kid will be laid on mothers chest during each session for up to a couple hours while wearing only a diaper and cap to promote skin-to-skin contact. Warmth can be provided by wrapping a blanket, shirt, hospital gown, or robe around mother and the child's back. The act of cradling the baby on her chest resembles a mother kangaroo carrying her young in her pouch, hence the name "kangaroo care."

Benefits of Kangaroo Care:

Kangaroo care has a lot of advantages. It benefits both premature and full-term infants, as well as the parents. Skin-to-skin bonding with the infant is something that both men and women can do.

The advantages of giving your infant kangaroo care include:

• Regulating the heart rate of the infant.
• The baby's breathing rhythm will be improved and made more regular.
• Increasing oxygen saturation levels, a sign that all of the baby's organs and tissues are receiving adequate oxygen delivery.
• Increasing sleep duration.
• Having a faster rate of weight growth
• Reducing weeping
• Having more breastfeeding sessions that are successful.
• Getting out of the hospital earlier

Parents may benefit from kangaroo care in the following ways:

• Increasing the sense of intimacy and your bond with your infant.
• Increasing the supply of breast milk.
• Boosting the self-assurance in your capacity to care for your newborn.
• Increasing the sense of security over the care given to your infant.
• Gaining more control over the situation

How does it Work?

When a mother uses kangaroo care, her baby usually clings to her breasts and drifts off to sleep in a matter of minutes. It has been demonstrated that the breasts themselves vary in warmth to accommodate the baby's needs. In other words, the breasts may warm up when the baby's body is cool and cool down when the baby is warm.

    

Are you Aware of Signs of Mental Illness in Children?

 

Parents may find it challenging to recognize a child's mental condition. Many kids who could benefit from treatment don't receive it as a result. Understand the signs of childhood mental illness and find how to support your child.

What is Mental Illness in Children?

The whole state of your thinking, emotion control, and behavior is referred to as your mental health. Patterns or changes in thought, mood, or behavior that cause distress or impair a person's capacity to function are referred to as mental illnesses or mental health disorders.

Children's mental health disorders are generally characterized as delays or disruptions in the development of thinking, acting, socializing, or emotion regulation in accordance with age. Children who have these issues find it difficult to operate normally at home, at school, or in other social environments.

The following are red flags indicating your child may have a mental health disorder:

• enduring depression that lasts for two weeks or longer
• avoiding or withdrawing from social contacts
• causing oneself harm or discussing one's own harm
• discussing a death or a suicide
• high impatience or outbursts
• Uncontrolled actions that may be harmful
• abrupt changes in personality, behavior, or mood
• shifts in dietary patterns
• gain less weight
• Inability to fall asleep Regular headaches or stomachaches
• difficulty paying attention
• Shifts in academic performance Skipping or refusing to attend school

What Can Cause Neonatal Encephalopathy?

A phenomenon called neonatal encephalopathy (NE) can affect newborn infants and cause abnormal neurological function. Lack of oxygen to the foetus at any stage during pregnancy or birth is the most common cause of NE.

The disorder may be referred to as hypoxia ischemic encephalopathy when oxygen deprivation results in NE (HIE). The brain suffers damage from oxygen deprivation, but other internal organs may also be impacted. Low oxygen levels can have negative effects on the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, and gastrointestinal tract. Those infants who survive NE are at a significant risk of developing cerebral palsy or a lasting brain impairment, but prompt treatment can help.

In some instances, other elements, such as:

• An infection in the mother’s uterus (womb) before birth
• An intraventricular hemorrhage (a type of bleeding in the brain that can be associated with prematurity)
• A congenital brain malformation
• A genetic or metabolic disorder

Diagnosis of Infant Encephalopathy:

Your newborn will undergo a physical examination from the physician very away after birth. Your child will be moved to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for specialized care if they exhibit NE symptoms. If your baby is born at a facility without a NICU, Riley at IU Health's mobile NeuroNICU transport service can be called upon to transport your child to our NeuroNICU, where they will receive the best care possible while receiving therapeutic treatments while in transit.