Kangaroo mother care had a protective effect on the volume of brain structures in young adults born preterm

Abstract

Aim The protective effects of Kangaroo mother care (KMC) on the neurodevelopment of preterm infants are well established, but we do not know whether the benefits persist beyond infancy. Our aim was to determine whether providing KMC in infancy affected brain volumes in young adulthood. Method Standardised cognitive, memory and motor skills tests were used to determine the brain volumes of 20‐year‐old adults who had formed part of a randomised controlled trial of KMC versus incubator care. Multivariate analysis of brain volumes was conducted according to KMC exposure. Results The study comprised 178 adults born preterm: 97 had received KMC and 81 were incubator care controls. Bivariate analysis showed larger volumes of total grey matter, basal nuclei and cerebellum in those who had received KMC, and the white matter was better organised. This means that the volumes of the main brain structures associated with intelligence, attention, memory and coordination were larger in the KMC group. Multivariate lineal regression analysis demonstrated the direct relationship between brain volumes and duration of KMC, after controlling for potential confounders. Conclusion Our findings suggest that the neuroprotective effects of KMC for preterm infants persisted beyond childhood and improved their lifetime functionality and quality of life.

Breastfeeding duration is associated with larger cortical gray matter volumes in children from the ABCD study

“…In this respect, mothers who perform early skin‐to‐skin contact (or “kangaroo care”) are more likely to continue exclusive breastfeeding until 6 months after delivery (Inano et al., 2021). At the same time, infants receiving skin‐to‐skin contact seem to have larger global GM volumes in young adulthood (Charpak et al., 2022), less behavioral problems at 3 years of age (Rheinheimer, Beijers, Bruinhof, Cooijmans, & de Weerth, 2022), and an attenuated response to stress and better executive functions at 10 (Feldman, Rosenthal, & Eidelman, 2014), compared with controls. Other factors related to the social circumstances of the family and to the parents themselves, such as higher socioeconomic status and higher maternal education level, have also been associated with increased breastfeeding duration (Lechosa‐Muñiz et al., 2020; Temple Newhook et al., 2017; Tracz & Gajewska, 2020) and less psychopathological levels in childhood (Peverill et al., 2021).…”

Cortical activation and oxygen perfusion in preterm newborns during kangaroo mother care: A pilot study

“…A direct relationship between brain volumes and duration of KMC was demonstrated. 11 Studying adolescents born prematurely, transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied over the primary motor cortex to assess motor circuit functionality. Outcomes were better in those who experienced KMC than in controls and similar between KMC and term adolescents.…”

VALS: Supporting Visual Data Analysis in Longitudinal Clinical Studies

“…So far, evidence from evaluation studies conducted with Kangaroo Foundation analysts shows that it is possible to proactively assist them with a tool built according to the proposed framework. This assistance, although initially simple, allowed them to perform exploratory tasks on the KMC study data, motivating analysis and uncovering useful and relevant insights such as those already published in [45].…”