2023-07-01 08:00:00
AFP
In Ivory Coast, the “kangaroo” method to save premature babies
Mounira is barely 40 centimeters tall. With his mouth open, one cheek flattened against his mother’s chest, this baby, born almost two months prematurely, is growing up thanks to the “kangaroo” method, which is increasingly used in Côte d’Ivoire. According to Unicef, between January 2019 and October 2022, out of 2,391 premature and low-weight newborns received in the country’s “kangaroo mother units”, 2,274 survived thanks to this method, a success of 95%. Recommended by the World Health Organization health (WHO), this “skin-to-skin method” puts “the mother at the center of the care of her child”, explains Doctor Chantière Somé, at the University Hospital of Treichville, in Abidjan. In Côte d’Ivoire, where 30 babies die per 1,000 births – a figure slightly higher than the average for sub-Saharan Africa (27) – a third of these early deaths are due to prematurity. And according to Virginie Konan, health specialist at UNICEF, this “kangaroo” method has “strongly contributed to lowering neonatal mortality” in the country. According to the latest available statistics from the UN body, she decreased by 10% between 2016 and 2021. With her face marked by fatigue, Mounira’s mother recounts her early delivery. “It was not easy”, says Adjara Traoré, “I did not expect it, it was really complicated, I almost lost my life”. Resident of the neighborhood, she comes to pick up her baby in an incubator ” every morning”, and stays “until the evening” at the Treichville University Hospital, to learn the “kangaroo mother care” (SMK) method. “The mother takes over from the incubator”, carrying her child permanently on her chest naked, in a cotton cloth, explains Dr Somé. Day and night, body warmth and affectionate gestures reduce the baby’s anxiety, when the beating of the heart and the movements of the mother stimulate him and l prevent you from forgetting to breathe, to avoid sudden death. Eight hospitals in the country have an “SMK” service, but that of Treichville, the largest establishment in the country, remains the best equipped. Faced with these results, other countries in the region are in turn beginning to replicate this inexpensive method, which is financed in Côte d’Ivoire by French funds and Unicef.”Senegal, Mali, Niger and Burkina are beginning to use the method, but Côte d’Ivoire has the most developed services”, explains Virginie Konan. – Reluctance – In Treichville, Jeanne-Marie Setché holds her son in her arms, born more than two months before the term. She came from Korhogo, more than 600 km away, in the north of the country, to try the SMKs. “There is no more stress” and “he is gaining weight”, she expresses. “When he is with me, the milk flows normally”, however, “when I did not see him, I had no milk. Even when I tried to express, the milk did not come out, really it stressed me, it made me really sick”, adds the new mother. In an incubator, the baby also experiences stress. “There is too much noise around, too much light (…) he is constantly disturbed” and can become a stressed adult, explains Doctor Somé. If the technique is natural, some women are reluctant at first. Moms “are afraid of their babies,” she says. “When we give them the baby, some reject it”, she notes. The child’s appearance and size surprise them, but “the biggest fear is to hurt”, abounds her colleague , doctor Marie-José Miezan. “When I saw her for the first time in the incubator, I cried, I was scared”, confirms Josée Don, three years after the premature birth of her daughter. Today, Miracle has no sequelae”, she rejoices, “we are particularly linked, because of having been so close at all times”. The luckiest mothers are placed in a hospital room, equipped with nine beds, and will be able to stay for several weeks.In this room, light stammering adorns a soothing silence.Affoussata Sidibé, a broad smile on her face, learns the method with her daughter. “She was born at 800 grams. Today, she is 2 kg and a few, so I am happy, very very happy”, she rejoices. After a month in the unit, she will now be able to go home with her child.bam/pid/ybl
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