Whether Kangaroo Care Can Be Performed by a Device? A Conceptual Incubator Designed for Preterm Infants

According to the statistics of the World Health Organization (WHO), preterm infants account for 10% of all newborns on average globally. The developmental care method Kangaroo Care (KC), also known as 'Extra Contact', was first introduced by Edgar Rey and Hector Martinez in 1983. This intervention has been proven to provide many parent-infant benefits, such as parent-infant attachment, input for the infant's developing brain and more stable breathing. However, the need of the presence of both infants and their parents in the same environment can barely be realized in the NICU environment, thus greatly restricts the application of traditional KC in practice. The question arises: whether KC can be delivered by a device, in the absence of the parents. In this regard, we undertook this study to investigate the possibility of performing KC via a device, and how. We conducted a mix of face-to-face and online interviews with ten medical professionals from Guangdong Women and Children's Hospital and Health Institute, located at Guangzhou, china. The results led on to the creation of a conceptual preterm infant incubator that will be introduced in the later sections of this paper. This conceptual incubator incorporated three main essential features, i.e., 'skin simulation', 'heartbeat simulation', and 'smell simulation', in light of the critical elements of KC as concluded from the interview results. It was then evaluated with the ten interviewees, and received general positive feedback.