The anxiety leading up to the delivery of our child can be overwhelming.
We want our baby to be healthy, we aren’t sure how that “special bond” with the child will take place, and we hope we will be able to provide enough breast milk to feed them. These really are the top three most important initial concerns for most moms-to-be.
When expecting parents ask me for help in preparing for this, my first and only answer often surprises them. “Really?” they say, “it seems too simple.”
It is simple. It’s called Kangaroo Care. And it’s been around since the dawn of man.
Kangaroo Care is allowing your baby to connect with you naturally through immediate and regular skin-to-skin contact, right out of the shoot. In fact, many hospitals and birthing centers around the globe are beginning to practice this through the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative as the benefits have resulted in miraculous recoveries of preterm high risk babies, and helped turn around lactation challenges, stimulating mother’s milk production and increasing positive breastfeeding behaviors.
When a mother and child experience skin-to-skin contact initially at birth and continue for at least one hour a day during the first twelve weeks of life, positive breastfeeding behaviors are established and a powerful unbreakable bond is formed like no other.
Neither parent is left out as daily Kangaroo Care can form powerful attachments between each member of the family, be it dad, grandparent or sibling.
The benefits are too important to ignore. Practicing proper skin-to-skin, Kangaroo Care helps regulate your baby’s body temperature and heart rate. It accelerates brain development, and eases symptoms of colic, helping your newborn sleep.
Building a strong attachment with your baby in the fourth trimester, provides a foundation of trust from which we teach and build upon as we evolve our parenting responses to match their evolving, developing needs as they begin to enter the second stage of infancy. Kangaroo Care sets your baby up for success!
There are some wonderful tools that can make Kangaroo Care possible even for the busiest multi-tasking mom. It’s no secret that my favorite is the Nuroo Pocket. When I saw this product two years ago, I was greatly encouraged and excited that a company would go to such lengths to invest in this important parenting process. The amazing women and mothers behind the Nuroo Pocket shirt have sacrificed everything to support new and expecting moms all over the world with a babywearing shirt that allows full coverage and mobility. And to them, I am truly grateful.
I encourage you to get involved, and give one as a gift to yourself and your new baby, or to an expecting mom who is dear to you. This is a gift that truly expresses love, health, and happiness to new and expecting families.
For more information on this product, you may find it at www.nuroobaby.com