The Magic of 72 Hours: The Amazing Mimicry of Kangaroo Mother Care

Anthropological illustrations of mind-body integration can be illustrated simply when we consider how indigenous peoples reflected or imitated natural primary rhythms for sustained survival in natural settings. The American Indian tribes that inhabit the plains would prepare a council meeting with the staging of the appropriate acoustic biosphere to promote both voice projection and an improved listening state.

Five drum positions during five days of non-stop drumming stand as a prime antecedent to the symbolic holding of the Olympic flame that we are used to witnessing every few years for the duration of the games. For this type of council meeting, which has since been known as a pow wow, the “heart” drum beat was set in motion and was continually maintained by alternating drums throughout the session meeting time.

Historically, council meetings were often conducted with an uninterrupted drumming at a rate of around 60 beats per minute. Specific singing techniques (stimulating both an inward pull of the abdomen and an outward pull of the diaphragm) facilitated a rhythmic breathing pattern concomitant with the percussion beat of the drum.

This had profound implications for a listening speech / dialogue when the participants had their body rhythm in sync. Furthermore, it appears that the ancient practice of immersion in this environment (for at least 72 hours) appears to synchronize the rhythms according to midwifery practices encouraged by progressive maternal caregivers / providers using a technique called Kangaroo Mother Care.

Indigenous mimicry of kangaroo care

Kangaroo mother care (KMC) has been defined in various ways, but two essential components are skin-to-skin contact (SSC) and breastfeeding (BF). From a biological perspective, in the immediate newborn period of Homo sapiens, skin-to-skin contact represents the absolutely correct “habitat”. Furthermore, breastfeeding represents the “niche” or preprogrammed behavior designed for that habitat.

Specific about SSC

In the uterine habitat, oxygenation is provided through the placenta and cord, in addition to warmth, nutrition, and protection. These are the four basic biological needs. Parturition (birth) represents a “habitat transition”. In the new habitat, the basic needs remain the same. Research over the past two decades provides strong support for the claim that the newborn itself, in skin-to-skin habitat, not the mother or the health service, provides these basic needs.

Oxygenation is significantly improved by SSC, to the extent that KMC is used successfully to treat respiratory distress. Breathing becomes regular and stable, and it is coordinated with the heart rate. When removed from the incubator and SSC is placed, an infant’s oxygen saturation may increase slightly, or the infant may reduce the percentage of oxygen provided to maintain a good saturation in the natural occurrence of respiration in vibrational response to the heartbeat. heart.

Heart rate is regulated when SSC is placed

Although we can consider that this increase is within the clinically normal range, what is observed is actually a return to the physiologically normal heart rate, since the lower rate is due to a “desperate protest behavior”. Babies removed from incubators and placed on SSC show a rise in temperature and a dramatic drop in glucocorticoids, as predicted by the “protest-despair” reaction.

Better than an incubator

Mothers can control babies’ temperature within a very narrow range, much better than an incubator. To achieve this, the mother’s core temperature can rise to two degrees Celsius if the baby is cold and drop one degree if the baby is hot. Skin-to-skin contact is much better than an incubator for rewarming hypothermic babies.

It suggests that perhaps it is not the father, but the mother, who intuitively knows the most: vibration and rhythm are a prime link for a flourishing social journey that begins in the womb and leads us through the conversation of life.

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