Mounira is barely 40 centimeters tall. With his mouth open, one cheek flattened against his mother’s chest, this baby, born almost two months prematurely, is growing up thanks to the “kangaroo” method, which is increasingly used in Côte d’Ivoire.
According to Unicef, between January 2019 and October 2022, out of 2,391 premature and low-weight newborns received in the country’s “kangaroo mother units”, 2,274 survived thanks to this method, a success of 95%.
Recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), this “skin-to-skin method” puts “the mother at the center of the care of her child”, explains Doctor Chantière Somé, at the University Hospital of Treichville, in Abidjan. .
In Côte d’Ivoire, where 30 babies die per 1,000 births – a figure slightly higher than the average for sub-Saharan Africa (27) – a third of these early deaths are due to prematurity.
And according to Virginie Konan, health specialist at UNICEF, this “kangaroo” method has “significantly contributed to lowering neonatal mortality” in the country. According to the latest available statistics from the UN body, it decreased by 10% between 2016 and 2021.
Her face marked by fatigue, Mounira’s mother recounts her early delivery. “It was not easy”, says Adjara Traoré, “I did not expect it, it was really complicated, I almost lost my life”.
A resident of the neighborhood, she picks up her baby from the incubator “every morning”, and stays “until the evening” at the Treichville University Hospital, to learn the “kangaroo mother care” (SMK) method.
“The mother takes over the incubator”, carrying her child permanently on her bare chest, in a cotton fabric, explains Dr Somé.
Day and night, body warmth and gestures of affection reduce the baby’s anxiety, when the beating of the heart and the movements of the mother stimulate him and prevent him from forgetting to breathe, to avoid his sudden death .
Eight hospitals in the country have an “SMK” service, but that of Treichville, the largest establishment in the country, remains the best equipped.
Faced with these results, other countries in the region are in turn beginning to replicate this inexpensive method, but which is financed in Côte d’Ivoire by French funds and UNICEF.
“Senegal, Mali, Niger and Burkina are starting to use the method, but Côte d’Ivoire has the most developed services”, explains Virginie Konan.
In Treichville, Jeanne-Marie Setché holds her son in her arms, born more than two months prematurely. She came from Korhogo, more than 600 km away, in the north of the country, to try out the SMKs.
“There is no more stress” and “he is gaining weight”, she expresses. “When he is with me, the milk flows normally”, however, “when I did not see him, I had no milk. Even when I tried to express, the milk did not come out, really it stressed me, it was making me really sick,” adds the new mom.
In the incubator, the baby also undergoes stress. “There is too much noise around, too much light (…) he is constantly disturbed” and can become a stressed adult, explains Doctor Somé.
If the technique is natural, some women are initially reluctant. Moms “are afraid of their babies,” she says. “When we give them the baby, some reject it,” she says.
The appearance and size of the child surprise them, but “the greatest fear is to hurt”, abounds his colleague, doctor Marie-José Miezan.
“When I saw her for the first time in the incubator, I cried, I was scared,” confirms Josée Don, three years after the premature birth of her daughter. Today, Miracle has no sequelae”, she rejoices, “we are particularly linked, because of having been so close at all times”.
The luckiest mothers are placed in a hospital ward, equipped with nine beds, and will be able to stay for several weeks.
In this room, slight stammering adorns a soothing silence. Affoussata Sidibé, a broad smile on her face, learns the method with her daughter.
“She was born at 800 grams. Today, she is 2 kg and some, so I’m happy, very very happy,” she rejoices.
After a month in the unit, she will now be able to go home with her child.
24/06/2023 06:18:48 – Abidjan (AFP) – © 2023 AFP