Background: The kangaroo mother method (KMM) may benefit infants and mothers in many ways. However, few studies focused on its efficacy on maternal anxiety and stress, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Objective: To examine the effect of the kangaroo mother method (KMM) on postnatal stress and anxiety in mothers of preterm infants in neonatal intensive care, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods: A cohort study of two groups of 56 mother-infant dyads recruited from a neonatal intensive care unit was conducted. Two groups were compared in terms of the mean duration of KMM during the twelve days of the study: the intervention group (mean duration of more than ninety minutes per day) and the control group (less than ninety minutes). Maternal stress was measured using the Parental Stressor: Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (PSS: NICU) scale and STAI E/R questionnaire before and after intervention (KMM). Demographic and other maternal covariates were extracted from medical records. Daily NICU records were used to track the frequency and duration of KMM sessions.
Results: Mothers of the intervention group scored lower on the PSS: NICU and STAI E/R, although no statistically significant differences were found (p > 0.05).
Conclusions: Contrary to research based on biological and physiological parameters in newborns or performed before the COVID-19 pandemic, the differences found in applying subjective scales in mothers in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic were not significant. Therefore, mothers' perception of physical contact with their preterm infants may not have been as positive due to their fear of transmitting COVID.
Keywords: anxiety; kangaroo mother method; neonatal intensive care unit; stress.