Kangaroo care

Six years ago last week our Theresa was born 14 weeks premature. Her original due date was 10 February 1999, but she was actually born on 3 November of the previous year. I will not repeat the story told here, which some of my readers have undoubtedly already seen. But during the three and a half weeks that Theresa was at the level-3 neonatal intensive care unit at McMaster University Medical Centre, we were encouraged by the nurses to practise something called "kangaroo care," which involved skin-to-skin contact between mother and baby or father and baby a few hours a day. This supplemented Theresa's lengthy stay in the incubator. Now, however, a new report has been released indicating that premature infants might actually flourish with kangaroo care altogether replacing the incubator. Time will tell whether this technique becomes widespread.