KIMS Organizes Workshop on Kangaroo Mother Care

Doctors, paramedics and frontline health workers met at Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS-Bhubaneswar) and deliberated on how Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) could help in bringing down neonatal mortality rate (NMR) in India and there could be more sensitization among the people involved in health sector.

Health and Family Welfare Department Government of Odisha, National Health Mission, Unicef, Norway India Partnership Initiative (NIPI), Canadian Neonatal Network (CNN), KMC Foundation, National Neonatology Forum, Indian Academy of Paediatrics and  AIIMS Bhubaneswar were partners in the event. While it was conducted in phases, from 19th January to 24th, the last but the concluding one, for two days, was held in KIMS.

At the KIMS conference experts including doctors from Paediatrics, Gynaecology, nursing and front-line health workers participated from West Bengal, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha, organised under the leadership of KIMS neonatologist Dr Santosh Kumar Panda.

Dr Panda said the KMC concept was originated in Bogota of Columbia in 1978 and KIMS has adopted it since 2012. As the kangaroo infant stays connected to its mother and goes out of the pouch once its growth period is over, through KMC low birth weight (LBW, birth weight of neonate less than 2500gram) babies can also be kept to the chest of mothers to keep them warm and provision of exclusive breast milk feasible for the infant. Mothers should provide KMC at home, It also helps in the survival of LBW infants in resource-limited settings.

Principal Prof Ambika Prasad Mohanty inaugurated the two-day session at KIMS. Prof Nalini Singhal from CNN, Managing Trustee of KMC Foundation Prof Sashi Vani, Nodal Officer NHM Prof Shyama Kanungo, NHM Odisha Consultant Dr Aditya Mohapatra and Prof Manas Ranjan Behera HOD Pediatrics joined the deliberations.

On this occasion, Dr Panda also informed that KMC is routinely integrated in care of LBW neonates in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of the Paediatric Dept in KIMS Hospital. More than 3,000 LBW babies have received KMC at the Paediatric Department of KIMS, Bhubaneswar.

At the conference workshop, while participating in the discussion, experts were of the opinion that with more and more sensitization on KMC concept across the state in PHC, CHC and block-level hospitals, Odisha can fight the NMR, which is currently 28. While the national average is 23, Odisha is second in the table just after Madhya Pradesh, which has NMR at 31, per 1,000 live births.