Sr Agneta Jurisoo studied what little literature was available on KMC during 1987. The following year she and Dr Bergman arrived at a small mission hospital in Zimbabwe, where premature births were common. There were no incubators, poor transport over great distances, and overloaded referral centres: only one of ten premature babies survived. In the absence of incubators, they started a care plan in which the mother became the incubator. Instead of waiting for the baby to “stabilise”, the mother was used to stabilise premature infants immediately after birth. It was immediately clear this was highly effective, no matter how small or how premature, stabilisation took a mere six hours. With this care, now five of ten very low birth weight babies survived. This work has been published: The "kangaroo-method" for treating low birth weight babies in a developing country. Tropical Doctor, April 1994, 24: 57-60. Next
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