Kangaroo Mother Care and the Bonding Hypothesis

PEDIATRICS Vol. 102 No. 2 August 1998, p. e17

Réjean Tessier*, Marta Cristo, Stella Velez, Marta Girón, SW; Zita Figueroa de Calume, Juan G. Ruiz-Paláez, Yves Charpak, and Nathalie Charpak

From the *School of Psychology, Laval University, Québec, Canada; ISS-World Lab, Kangaroo Mother Care Program, Clinica del Nino, Santa Fe de Bogotá, Colombia; - Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Javeriana University, Santa Fe de Bogotá, Colombia; and EVAL (Institut pour l'Évaluation dans le domaine Médical, Médico-social et de Santé Publique), Paris, France.

TABLE 5

Mother’s Perception and Mother and Child’s Observed Sensitivity by Intervention Groups (KMC vs TC) and Child’s Need of NICU at Birth

	With NICU		Without NICU
	KMC (n = 47)	TC (n = 35)	KMC (n = 199)	TC (n = 207)
	Mean ± SD	Mean ± SD	Mean ± SD	Mean ± SD
Mothers’ perception	(a)	(b)	(c)	(d)
Sense of competence	.24  ± 1.3	.30  ± .87	.14  ± .98	.10  ± .97	ac > bd**1
Stress and worry	.07  ± .91	.17  ± 1.3	.04  ± .94	.08  ± .93	NS
Support	.20  ± 1.3	.25  ± .89	.14  ± .99	.06  ± .91	ab > cdt2
Mothers’ sensitivity
Sensitivity	.77  ± .09	.75  ± .15	.73  ± .12	.71  ± .13	ab > cd**2
Response to child’s distress	.90  ± .12	.85  ± .15	.89  ± .15	.91  ± .15
Socioemotional growth fostering	.61  ± .14	.66  ± .16	.59  ± .16	.57  ± .15	ab > cd**2
					b > a*3
Cognitive growth fostering	.35  ± .19	.42  ± .24	.33  ± .20	.30  ± .18	ab > cd**2
					b > a*3
Child’s clarity of cues	.66  ± .12	.67  ± .15	.64  ± .14	.62  ± .16	ab > cd*2
Child’s responsivity to mother	.33  ± .12	.34  ± .15	.31  ± .13	.29  ± .14	ab > cd*2
(a), (b), (c), and (d) Represent group means.
* P < .05;
** P < .01;
*** P < .001; t < .10. 1 Group effect; 2 NICU effect; 3 interaction effect.

Pediatrics (ISSN 0031 4005). © 1998 by the American Academy of Pediatrics