Benefits of Early Maternal Participation in Care of Low Birth Weight Infants Leading to Early Discharge

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Abstract
The morbidity and mortalxsity of low birth weight babies continues to be high in developing countries. After discharge from Special Care, their future survival depends largely on the mother's ability to feed and manage these infants. This ability is impaired when the infant's stay in hospital is prolonged for purposes of gaining weight and is undermined by frequent bouts of infection, overcrowding, understaffing, a disturbed mother-infant relationship and failure of breast-feeding. Hence mothers should be encouraged to participate in the care and feeding of infants as early as possible and once a satisfactory mother-infant relationship is established, the infants are discharged irrespective of body weight and followed up subsequently in a special clinic. This study is an analysis of the progress and outcome of such infants discharged over a period of one year. The mean weight on discharge was 1580 g with a range of 1100 to 1800 g. Our results revealed that 82 per cent came for follow up out of which 53 per cent were doing well and gaining weight rapidly while 38 per 'cent fared moderately and only 9 per cent did poorly requiring readmission with a 5 per cent mortality. One significant factor determining a favourable outcome was the ability of the mother to breast feed her infant.

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