The effect of kangaroo mother care on mental health of mothers with low birth weight infants

Background: The mothers of premature infants are at risk of psychological stress because of separation from their infants. One of the methods influencing the maternal mental health in the postpartum period is kangaroo mother care (KMC). This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of KMC of low birth weight infants on their maternal mental health. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted in the Department of Pediatrics of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran. Premature infants were randomly allocated into two groups. The control group received standard caring in the incubator. In the experimental group, caring with three sessions of 60 min KMC daily for 1 week was practiced. Mental health scores of the mothers were evaluated by using the 28-item General Health Questionnaire. Statistical analysis was performed by the analysis of covariance using SPSS. Results: The scores of 50 infant-mother pairs were analyzed totally (25 in KMC group and 25 in standard care group). Results of covariance analysis showed the positive effects of KMC on the rate of maternal mental health scores. There were statistically significant differences between the mean scores of the experimental group and control subjects in the posttest period (P < 0.001). Conclusion: KMC for low birth weight infants is a safe way to improve maternal mental health. Therefore, it is suggested as a useful method that can be recommended for improving the mental health of mothers.

• Publication year

  2014

• Venue

  Advanced Biomedical Research

• Publication date

  2014-10-20

• Fields of study

  Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.4103/2277-9175.143262PMID 25371871PMCID 4219210
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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