Knowledge about Kangaroo Mother Care among the Mothers and Grandmothers-A Cross-sectional Study in a Neonatal Follow-up Clinic of a Tertiary Care Hospital in Tamil Nadu, India

Introduction: Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) is a simple method of caring Low Birth Weight (LBW) babies with a birth weight below 2500 grams. The grandmothers play a key role in child rearing in the Indian society. Aim: To estimate the level of knowledge about the KMC in the grandmothers and to compare it with that of the mothers. Materials and Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted in the neonatal follow-up clinic of the hospital with a convenience sampling of all the mother (Group 1) and grandmother (Group 2) dyads. The mothers and grandmothers were interviewed separately using a pre validated questionnaire with 15 open ended questions to assess the knowledge about the KMC. Mann-Whitney U test and Fischer's-exact test were used for statistical analysis. Results: There were 390 mother- grandmother dyads in the study group. The mean age of the mothers and grandmothers were 24.69 +/- 1.54 years and 53.89 +/- 1.80 years, respectively. For all the 15 questions the grandmothers had a significantly lower score when compared to the mothers (p<0.001). The grandmothers (mean score: 8.48 +/- 2.00) had a significantly lower overall knowledge scores than the mothers (mean score: 23.10 +/- 1.55). On comparison of the mean knowledge scores of the mothers with their age, educational grade and socio-economic class, it was found to be independent of these factors (p=0.209, 0.691 and 0.731, respectively). Conclusion: This study had demonstrated that the grandmothers have a significantly lower knowledge about KMC. There is an urgent need to empower them with the knowledge about KMC for the successful continuation KMC in the home.

Automated summary

The study showed that grandmothers have significantly less knowledge about KMC compared to mothers, highlighting the urgent need to empower grandmothers with knowledge about KMC for successful implementation at home.