Impact of Gestational Age on Weekly Weight Gain in Preterm Low Birth Weight Infants Undergoing Kangaroo Mother Care in a Tertiary Hospital: A Prospective Cohort Study

Introduction: Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) fosters the well-being of babies by promoting temperature control, ease of breast-feeding, and strengthening the bond between mother and baby. Rarely any comparative analysis between preterm child receiving KMC of different Gestational Age (GA) groups and their subsequent weight gain has been conducted. This study tried to fulfill this gap. Aim: To observe differential weight gain in different GA groups (28-32, 32-35 and 35-37 weeks) of preterm child receiving KMC and thus establishing an association between GA and postnatal weight gain in preterm babies receiving KMC. Materials and Methods: The present prospective cohort study was done in Chittaranjan Seva Sadan College of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Child Health, a Tertiary Hospital in Kolkata,West Bengal, India, from June 2021 to May 2022. Data on Low Birth Weight (LBW) babies weighing <2.5 kg, between the GA of 28-37 weeks, was collected from Sick Newborn Care Unit (SNCU), Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), postnatal ward and follow-up clinic over a period of one year. Sample size calculated as 242. Mothers were counselled to perform at least 1.5 hours of KMC per sitting in 3-4 sittings per day. The weights were recorded every week until the babies attained a weight of 2.5 kg. Analysis of the data was done with IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Statistics for Windows, Version 22.0. Armonk, NY: IBM Corp. 2013 and Graph Pad Prism version 5. The categorical variables were analysed with the help of required non-parametric test (viz., Anderson-Darling test) and continuous variables were analysed with the help of required parametric test (viz., Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Repeated measures ANOVA was done to assess changes of weight gain. The level of significance was considered as 95% of confidence interval. So, p-value<0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: It was seen that weight gain in 28-32 weeks GA group was less in the initial 2-3 weeks compared to babies of higher GA (32-35 weeks and 35-37 weeks) group while in the later weeks (5th weeks onwards) the weight gain in this 28-32 week GA group was more than the other groups, which was statistically significant with p=0.003. Conclusion: It was observed that babies more premature, they showed lesser percentage of weight gain and daily weight gain for first four weeks of their postnatal life. But following that these smaller babies showed more weight gain compared to their counterparts.