Premature baby: assistance in NICU and the advantages of kangaroo therapy

A baby born before the 37th week of pregnancy is defined as premature.

Babies born before 32 weeks are defined as very preterm and babies born before 29 weeks as extremely preterm. The latter, which represent 0.9% of births, are the most difficult cases to manage from a medical point of view.

Approximately 30,000 premature babies are born in Italy every year (SIN estimates). In 2016 they accounted for 6.7% of births according to ISTAT data.

Premature babies need specific medicalization as they are born without having fully matured organs and systems . The lower the gestational age they are born, the more medical care they need.

Survival estimates

Estimates are based on the baby’s birth weight.

Advances in medicine have made great strides, so much so that in the last 40 years the discovery of increasingly effective therapies has made it possible to drastically reduce mortality rates.

It has passed to a survival of more than 85% in children born weighing less than 1500 grams and more than 70% in children born weighing less than 1000 grams.

However, these are children who require special attention as they present a high risk of developing respiratory, metabolic, infectious complications and neuromotor, cognitive and sensory sequelae, especially in those born at the lowest gestational ages (less than 28 weeks of gestational age).

How to improve care for premature births?

According to SIN, the Italian Society of Neonatology , ” to guarantee the best possible assistance to these little ones, the first step is to reduce the number of birth points , in favor of the larger ones, so as to increase safety standards also for preterm births “.

In this way, again according to the SIN, it will be possible to increase safety for women and newborns at the moment of birth because nowadays many children are still born in inadequate birth centres, where fewer than 500 births take place a year.

Treatments in the Intensive Care Unit

According to the SIN, parents must be guaranteed access to intensive care 24 hours a day. In this way, mothers can stay in contact with the baby, which promotes not only breastfeeding but also cognitive development and the consolidation of bond between mother-son and father-son with Kangaroo-care.

The advantages of pouch therapy

With kangaroo therapy, the baby is placed naked on the chest. Skin-to-skin contact with mum or dad has many advantages:

• it ensures the regulation of the newborn’s temperature and breathing
• improves the baby’s oxygen level
• has a positive influence on the neurological development of the newborn
• creates an intense bond that has a very strong impact on the psychological level of mother, father and newborn.

“In the NICUs the incubators are increasingly comfortable, and we are committed to improving the quality of life of the young guests through a series of treatments aimed at minimizing the painful sensations to which the child may be subjected.

Contrary to what was thought in the past about the functional immaturity of the pain pathways in these children, premature infants are perfectly capable of perceiving pain. Thus, for example, today during painful manoeuvres, the baby is kept in the mother’s arms, and, if possible, it is attached to the breast, or glucose solutions are administered by mouth, or music therapy is practiced: that is, through incubators play soft music or sounds that reproduce the muffled noises that cradled them inside the uterus. In the most avant-garde centers it is also possible to reproduce the recorded voice of the mother which, as demonstrated, helps the little ones to keep their heart and breathing rates regular.”