Randomised Trial Comparing Kangaroo Versus Incubator Care for Post-birth Transport of Preterm Babies

Status

Not yet recruiting

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

ANZCTR

Registry ID

ACTRN12626000159358

Acronym

KANGA

Enrollment

130

Registered

2026-02-09

Start date

2026-02-23

Completion date

2026-10-30

Last updated

2026-02-16

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

None listed

Brief summary

Preterm infants often struggle to maintain body heat immediately after birth, and the standard practice is to transfer them to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) inside a pre-warmed incubator. Skin-to-skin care or kangaroo care, holding the baby skin-to-skin against a person's chest, has proven benefits for temperature control and bonding, but it has not been widely tested during the actual transport from the delivery room to the NICU in high-resource settings. This non-inferiority trial will compare skin-to-skin care transport, using a secure parent-worn vest, against the standard incubator method. The primary outcome will be the neonate’s temperature at NICU admission. Secondary outcomes will assess safety, feasibility, and parental experience. If kangaroo care transport is shown to be non-inferior to transport incubator in maintaining thermal stability, without additional risks, it could provide a more family-centred alternative that keeps infants close to their parents from the very first moments of life.

Interventions

Immediate postnatal skin-to-skin care transport with a parent/ family member seated in a wheelchair using a kangaroo care garment. Transport will take 5-10 minutes. Kangaroo vest used (cotton-based cloth wrap) with blankets on top as required, intervention administered by medical and nursing team assisting the family to secure the baby in the kangaroo vest with skin-to-skin contact, Intervention only from initial transport from birth to neonatal unit. Located at Monash hospital

Study design

Allocation

Randomised controlled trial

Intervention model

Parallel

Primary purpose

Treatment

Masking

Open (masking not used)

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Age

0 to No maximum

Healthy volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Preterm neonates born between 28+0 to 34+6 weeks’ gestation delivered in either the birthing suite or operating theatre and require admission to the NICU.

Exclusion criteria

- Require FiO2 > 0.30 (30%) for transport - Are intubated at birth or require advanced resuscitation - Have an axillary temperature less that 35.5 °C following stabilisation or prior to transfer - Are otherwise deemed clinically unstable by the attending neonatologist

Outcome results