Photo of the Week: Kangaroo Mother Care and a Mother's Love

 Photo: Colin Crowley/Save the Children

Rukia and her nine-day-old son Hussein at the Mother Kangaroo Ward in Mtwara District Hospital, Tanzania. Rukia had been attending regular antenatal checkups in her local village health facility where she was told to go to the district hospital because she was showing signs of being close to giving birth even though she was only seven months into her pregnancy.

After a scan showed that she was carrying too much fluid in her abdomen, she was operated on and her son Hussein was delivered by C-section. After this she was placed in the Kangaroo Mother Care ward where she was trained on how to hold her son to her bare skin and wrap him up so that she maintains body contact with him. She was also taught how to feed appropriate amounts of breast milk to her child, and trained in proper hygiene techniques such as washing her hands and cleaning her breasts before feeding.  

• VIDEO: UNICEF Tanzania - Kangaroo Mother Care Saving Lives in Tanzania 
• RESOURCE: International Journal of Epidemiology - KMC to prevent neonatal deaths