At the beginning was the Word

I can not help recalling the biblical affirmation after laminated 'Babies kangaroos'. We must thank Dr. Nathalie Charpak for familiarié French language parents with what is now called 'Kangaroo Care'. This book is the first that raises all practical questions inspired by the invention Colombian. This may seem strange that it took so long to discover that the newborn human mammal requires is the contact with his mother and that it took so long to invent such a method. The principle is so simple, so easily understood by anyone with a little common sense. In the case of a premature baby or a baby very small weight able to breathe spontaneously, the mother replaces the incubator. As soon as possible (ideally from birth) the baby is kept continuously in a pouch marsupial against the mother's chest, in direct contact with her skin. While the incubator (a glass box with a thermostat) does nothing else than heat, continuous contact with the body of the mother provides much more than that.

We had to wait until the information provided by Nathalie Charpak (key figure in the Kangaroo Foundation) to realize that the concept of marsupials baby is doing around the world. Many readers will be surprised to find information about kangaroo care on all continents (except on the Australian continent!). Thus I learned that the maternity of the Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Minh city (probably the largest maternity hospital in the world with 30,000 births annually) adopted the Colombian method to reduce occupancy rate incubators .

Those who have had the experience of the method before the term 'kangaroo care' has been introduced regret that this contribution in our vocabulary has not occurred earlier. After meeting with Rey and Martinez Doctors in Bogota in 1981, I became bolder in the case of premature born in the maternity hospital in Pithiviers. In fact it was difficult to justify our attitude, which was to remain semi-clandestine. The only medico-legal problem I faced after being responsible for approximately 15,000 births in Pithiviers concerned a baby kangaroo. When I asked Edgar Rey to participate in a collective book on prematurity, he gave a perfect description of what he called 'the outpatient tratement premature', without any reference to marsupials (Edgar Rey Sanabria. Greet premature IN: A child's early notebooks Newborn 1983; 6:.. 197-203). As soon as the term 'kangaroo method' was introduced, we have been more daring and reference a method which many had heard. A new phase in the history of this way of mothering began. Who introduced the term 'Baby kangaroos? And when? Who knows? Let us remember that 'In the beginning was the Word'.