An hour of empowerment
At the Community Empowerment Lab (CEL) in Lucknow, we do a lot of talking about Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC)– extended periods of skin-to-skin contact between the mother and her newborn along with exclusive breastfeeding – how effective it is compared to traditional incubators, how often it should be given, what it will take to increase uptake.
However, there is a barrier to articulating the intangible aspects of this practice. To truly understand KMC, you have to give it, so that’s what I did. I went to the Veerangana Avanti Bai Women’s Hospital in Lucknow and gave KMC to a baby for just one hour. I will try, briefly, to describe this wonderfully overwhelming experience.
When they placed him on my chest and I felt his small heart beating against my own, I understood everything we promise to mothers when we say KMC is more than just a recommended healthcare practice. I felt love, responsibility, agency, bonding, and empowerment. I had no prior attachment to this baby; I didn’t even know his name until halfway through, but this put our bonding into even sharper, more undeniable relief.
I wanted to stay by him, convince him I loved him, that everything would be okay, and that I would protect him. I was praying over him and singing to him. I was actually healing this baby as he slept on my chest, and he was healing me. At the end of the hour, I didn’t want to give him up. I wish I had the vocabulary to adequately articulate what can only be described as the divinity of this experience. And now, I can’t help but wonder why something so beautiful and successful, has only been championed in field of healthcare in recent decades. It is with intentionality that I call this practice “innate”; 21st century public health researchers didn’t invent KMC. Rather, its effectiveness is rooted in human nature itself, and this cannot be ignored. Since the fascination with technology has failed to do much in the way of curbing neonatal mortality, it is time look within for revival.
Modern medicine must stop circumventing humanity in trying to solve public health problems. In 2003, the team at CEL started a movement, right here in UP, with the simple and powerful idea that mothers and babies should be at the centre of innovation in maternal and newborn health.
Fifteen years later and KMC is on the verge of a massive expansion. There are now KMC lounges in 68 hospitals and CHCs, designed to provide empathetic spaces in which women are empowered to do the very thing they were built for. They are finally and rightfully recognized as powerful beings with agency and ability. These lounges are the manifestation of the groundbreaking realisation that acknowledging human nature transforms lives. And being reminded of this doesn’t just heal the babies or the mothers; allowing ourselves to be inspired into action by this focus on humanity can heal the brokenness in the healthcare system, and it may be the only way to begin healing our society.
We can present studies and statistics to convince someone of the benefits of this practice, but for anyone still skeptical, I recommend they try it. Give KMC and put what research tells us; the proof of its power will be inspirational. Take an hour, feel empowered.