Family raises awareness for “Kangaroo Care” for premature newborns

By Sooji Nam

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    STANFORD, California (KPIX) — A recent study from Stanford Medicine emphasized the importance of “Kangaroo Care” for premature newborns, citing that the skin-to-skin care method improves the child’s cognitive health and stabilizes the newborn’s heart rate.

Abigaile Cardona gave birth to premature triplets at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health about 10 months ago.

“My husband and I started laughing and crying, we were shocked to say the least. We were just trying for one baby and ended up getting three so that was quite a shock,” Cardona told CBS News Bay Area, laughing.

Abigaile and her husband, Orlando, welcomed Mateo, Parker and Lennon Cardona when they were just 27 weeks old. She said she was going to her normal checkup to monitor Parker’s growth restrictions in her womb. Suddenly, she began experiencing contractions.

“We checked in on Thursday morning for a regular weekly appointment and I had the babies the next day at noon. So, it was quite a 24-hour period I was not expecting that,” Abigaile said.

She ended up having an emergency C-section and gave birth to her babies 13 weeks earlier than anticipated.

“She was actually one pound when she was born so she was so small it’s hard to kind of imagine how tiny they were,” Cardona said, referencing her daughter Parker.

It wasn’t until five days after she gave birth that she and her husband were finally able to hold their newborns in the NICU.

“Getting to hold him for the first time, I was just crying and you finally feel like oh my gosh this is my child. It helped me as a mom feel more connected to them,” Abigaile recalled.

She and her husband spent several weeks in the NICU, utilizing the “Kangaroo Care” method.

“For them to feel that there are ways that they can really impact outcomes and skin-to-skin care is a great way for parents to really move the needle on their babies’ health,” Dr. Melissa Scala, a neonatologist at Stanford Children’s Health, told CBS News Bay Area.

Scala said that the recent study shows that this method of care vastly improves babies’ long-term brain development.

“We were able to show that an extra 20 minutes a day of skin-to-skin care for premature babies actually resulted in a 10-point increase in cognitive score. So, it’s almost like a 10-point higher IQ at 12 months of age,” Scala said.

Experts also added that the Kangaroo Care improves the babies’ breathing patterns, sleep cycles and strengthens emotional bonding with their caregivers.

For Cardona, she said this care really helped her develop a stronger bond with her triplets in the hospital, and is continuing that care at home.

“Each of them has gone through more things in their life than I have at my 31 years of age, and I just want them to be proud of all of the things that they fought, all of the things that they tackled, and just to know how proud we are of them and that we love them,” she said.

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