Globally 2.4 million children died in the first month of life in 2020. India alone accounted for 22% of these newborn deaths. The leading risk factor for mortality among children under five years of age is Low Birth Weight, which is responsible for more than 80% of neonatal deaths. A simple solution holds the potential to significantly reduce these deaths: placing low birth weight infants directly onto the mother's chest for skin-to-skin contact, an intervention known as Kangaroo Care (KC). KC entails not only prolonged and continuous skin-to-skin contact but also exclusive breastfeeding and close monitoring of the infant. KC has proven to effectively reduce mortality and morbidity rates by around 33% (compared to the standard of care using electric incubators) by preventing hypothermia, fighting infections like sepsis, and helping the newborn gain weight through the caregiver’s heat. However, adoption barriers for Kangaroo Care in LMICs, such as India, persist. These include insufficient equipment, a shortage of human resources, and a lack of privacy within healthcare facilities. Many of our target healthcare facilities even lack the infrastructure for conventional standard of care (i.e., electric incubators), further amplifying the potential impact of Kangaroo Care in low-resource settings. Our approach is both direct and cost-effective: repurpose existing hospital spaces to facilitate KC, provide essential equipment like infant weighing scales and cloth binders, and expand capacity by training and hiring health workers (HW) dedicated to teaching and monitoring KC for mothers in the wards.
