Nearly 30% of newborns in Bangladesh are born premature and need special care. There is a dearth of institutional facilities and trained manpower to manage the huge number of these babies. Direct skin to skin contact with the mother's chest (and also if necessary with father or other family member) known as Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) has proved to be a very effective and inexpensive method of caring these premature, low birth weight babies who are not critically ill or unstable. KMC provides effective thermal control, reduces apnea, increases weight gain and reduces duration of hospital stay. However it was never practiced at public health facilities in Bangladesh.
Since 2013, WHO facilitated demonstration of use of KMC in Dhaka Shishu Hospital, the largest tertiary level children hospital in Bangladesh to improve the survival of premature and low birth weight newborns. The demonstration has improved the survival of the targeted newborns, which has convinced the policy makers to take forward KMC as one of the four interventions to improve the situation of newborn health in this country. WHO provided technical support to establish the first ever national level training center on KMC in Dhaka Shishu Hospital, which is now being used to train doctors and nurses on KMC and thus scale-up this unique intervention throughout the country. As continuation of this effort, WHO has facilitated a series of training programs in Dhaka Shishu Hospital and BSMMU from July 01-September 30, 2016 to train doctors and nurses from two medical colleges, two tertiary level children hospitals, twelve district hospitals and a number of Upazilla Health Centers under these districts.
A total of 125 senior Staff Nurses and 50 doctors have been trained so far. The training was judged to be a success as the post-training evaluation indicated a huge increase in knowledge on KMC.