Mother-newborn intensive care units are changing the treatment of low-birth-weight and seriously ill babies by allowing them to remain with their mothers while receiving intensive support, Indian Council of Medical Research director-general Rajiv Bahl said in Kolkata on Sunday.
Bahl was speaking at the fourth Dilip Mahalanabis Oration, titled “Kangaroo Mother Care: Transforming Care for Small & Sick Newborns”, organised by Liver Foundation, West Bengal. He led the trial that assessed the effectiveness of mother-newborn intensive care units and had earlier worked with the World Health Organisation.
The units allow mothers to stay beside their babies while the newborns receive warmth, intravenous fluids, oxygen and continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP. The approach is based on continuous kangaroo mother care, in which the baby remains on the mother’s chest while receiving the required medical support.
Bahl said the trial showed a reduction in mortality from about 13 per cent to 9 per cent among a very high-risk group in developing countries, including patients treated in tertiary-care hospitals. He said the approach established the concept of “zero separation” from birth to discharge, including for babies requiring respiratory or other forms of support.
The model also provides for a surrogate caregiver to take over if the mother becomes exhausted. During the trial, babies received care either from their mothers or from a surrogate caregiver, such as a grandmother or aunt, until the mother recovered from childbirth. Bahl said this differed from conventional nursery care, where kangaroo mother care was provided in brief sessions only after babies became stable.
The trial also led to changes in the design and operation of the units. Nurses’ toilets were moved outside, while toilets for mothers and a dining area were provided inside so that mothers could remain with their babies. Mother-newborn intensive care units were incorporated into World Health Organisation and Indian national guidelines in 2025, according to Bahl.
Abhijit Chowdhury, chief mentor of Liver Foundation, West Bengal, linked the model to the work of Dilip Mahalanabis, who developed Sick Newborn Care Units in low-resource settings. Chowdhury said Mahalanabis’s work, including an SNCU in Purulia, showed that newborn-care facilities could be established in smaller settings with limited equipment. He described the mother-newborn intensive care unit as an advanced model that builds on the SNCU while keeping the mother and child together during recovery.
