Meerut Medical College marks International KMC day with street play in wards

Bareilly: In an unusual departure from conference-room awareness drives, the Department of Paediatrics at Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial (LLRM) Medical College took Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) education directly to hospital beds, staging a skit play inside the post-natal and maternity wards on the occasion of International KMC Day.The nukkad natak, performed by nursing staff Suchita, Nishu, and Ujjwala, demonstrated to new mothers and their families how skin-to-skin contact regulates newborn body temperature, promotes breastfeeding, and strengthens mother-infant emotional bonding, particularly for premature and low-birth-weight babies.The program was led by Dr. Anupama Verma head of the paediatrics department.“There is no incubator like a mother’s chest, and no medicine stronger than a parent's touch," said Dr vermaThe event, organised under the aegis of Uttar Pradesh National Neonatology Forum (UP NNF), drew around 60 new mothers, 20 nursing staff, and 20 paediatric residents."Rather than targeting healthcare workers alone, the ward-level theatre format reached the actual caregivers -- mothers still in recovery -- making it one of the few KMC awareness initiatives designed to work at the point of care," said College Principal Dr R.C. Gupta, adding that the department has done a great job for the initiative.KMC is a WHO-recommended practice shown to reduce neonatal mortality by up to 40% in low-birth-weight infants, Gupta added.