2022 - Results of the 24-Hour Global Kangaroo-a-thon on World Prematurity Day

Thanks to everyone who, in one way or another, celebrated World Prematurity Day with Kangaroo Care. 

We hosted the 24-hour kangaroo-a-thon on World Prematurity Day and requested a quick report of the results so we could present it at the Kangaroo Mother Care Conference in Madrid on Nov. 22-23.

Here are the results.  We are so happy that teams experienced an increased duration of kangaroo care.

Click here for the kangaroo-a-thon we will be hosting on Kangaroo Care Day (May 15)

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE OVERALL WINNERS!

THE WINNERS BY COUNTRY ARE:

ALL TEAMS COMBINED:

Number of teams registered: 149

Teams that submitted results: 43

Total babies participating: 1004

Kangaroo Care duration: 1376 hours, 25 minutes

Total babies held: 403

Average Kangaroo Care Duration per baby (all the team): 1 hr 19 min

Average Kangaroo Care Duration per baby (babies held): 3 hr 24 min

Percent of babies held: 39%

Comments from the participants:

- It was a great experience, parents and staff were super motivated. Our longest KC sessions were the full 24 hours, achieved by two parent-couples of which we are very proud :) All in all it was perceived as a day with a holiday-vibe, amidst the stress, disease and chaos in a NICU (and medium care). What could have been better was that parents who could not practice KC for long (for instance due to phototherapy) felt a bit left out (although they could of course participate nevertheless).

- Parents were really happy to participate.

- I think this was an amazing initiative. 

- I think that it was actually wonderful to have a global initiative. The tracking cards written out to the parents definitely was something that involved parents and kind of motivated them. Particularly with our unit. I want to say that we had 4 vents & 6 CPAPs- with a total of 31 babies and 17 nurses. Plus, C-Section deliveries that our NEO team attended. So, a busy day with sick babies! But especially with this being linked to WPD, staff made the extra effort to ensure parents were supported.

- It was lovely to be part of an international day celebrating kangaroo care and was a fun way to encourage parents to have KC cuddles! We have things to improve on our unit e.g. make more wraps available and education to staff to enable to them to support parents in transferring their baby for KC.

- I just want to say thank you for this global Kangaroo-a-thon. It was amazing to see our NICU do 2055 minutes on a very very busy day. I didn't have space to add this to my feedback, but I wanted to suggest hand hugs be added to this challenge as well... esp for NICUs, with the very tiny, sick vent babies for who STS was not possible "hand hugs" were still done but could not be captured. So that would be nice for the future :)