Objectives: Kangaroo mother care (KMC) is least expensive way to human care of babies with low birth weight. Most of studies have investigated the effect of KMC on weight gaining in hospitalized premature infants in intensive care unit and have not reported a significant effect. This result could be due to the short intervention period in the hospital. Few studies focused on KMC at home, so this study will be undertaken to determine if KMC at home has significant effect on anthropometric indexes in preterm newborns.
Design: In a single blind randomize controlled trail and, 105 preterm infants who will be discharged from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), will be randomly assigned to one of the three groups by a sampler: KMC, KMC with telephone advice and control group (35 in each group).
Participants: Iranian singleton preterm infants with gestational age 32-37 weeks; No congenital anomalies; Lack of neonatal resuscitation and intra uterine growth retardation (IUGR). If mother's unwillingness to continue participation in the study; Illness or disability maternal to caring infant; Infant death; Non exclusive breast-feeding; Mother or infant hospitalization during the study; KMC was more than three times a day; KMC less than 2 hours per day, the samples will be excluded from study.
Intervention: In the KMC group, the special cover will be given to the mothers. The bare baby will be put in the cover between their breasts for 2-4 hours and maximum for three times every day. Duration of care will be recorded daily in the special checklist. Extra to the above, in the telephone advice group, In order to remind the KMC, will be contacted with mothers twice a week. Before the intervention, in two intervention groups, educational pamphlet about KMC implementation will be given to the mothers. In three groups after the intervention, weight, height, head and chest circumference will be measured by a research assistant in all infants.
Main outcome: In three groups after the intervention, weight, height, head and chest circumference will be measured in all infants by a research assistant. In all groups, the number of infant's severe crying, defecation, breast-feeding and sleep that will be recorded daily in special checklist by mother, will be docketed in the data recording sheet by a research assistant. No intervention will be done in control group.
Method of blinding: Infant anthropometric measurements and recording of behavioral characteristics of preterm infants in the data recording sheet will be done by by a research assistant.