Immediate Kangaroo Mother Care scale-up implementation research

Globally each year about 32 million newborns are born small for gestational age and 15 million are born preterm accounting for 80% of neonatal deaths. The efficacy of KMC in reducing the risk of mortality among preterm births has long been established. Compared to conventional care KMC reduces neonatal mortality by 40% among stable preterm births. A more recent multicounty randomized controlled trial found, newborns weighing 1,000 – 1.799g at birth who received KMC immediately after birth had 25% lower mortality at 28th day of life compared to those who received KMC after they are stabilized through conventional care provided in incubator or under a radiant warmer.
The proposed multi-country implementation research study aims to develop and evaluate an optimized implementation model in routine health system to achieve at least 80% immediate KMC coverage among eligible babies born or referred to the immediate KMC facilities. The study will also scale up the optimized implementation model and evaluate its impact on neonatal and other relevant neonatal outcomes.