We are excited to welcome Dr. Nils Bergman, Swedish specialist in perinatal neuroscience, one of the founders of the Kangaroo Mother Care movement, and a promoter of skin-to-skin contact between a mother and newborn. Remote Access Available.
RSVP
Speaker
Bergman was born in Sweden but grew up in Zimbabwe, and then moved to Cape Town, South Africa, where he received his medical degree at the University of Cape Town, followed by a Masters in Public Health at the University of the Western Cape and a doctoral dissertation on scorpion stings. He returned to Zimbabwe in the 1980s as a mission doctor, and started practicing what is now known as Kangaroo Mother Care on babies born prematurely. His wife, Jill Bergman, is a practicing Doula / Kangaroula.
Work
Due to the lack of incubators in the remote Manama Mission hospital where Bergman was working as Medical Superintendent and District Medical Officer, he collaborated with Midwife Agneta Jurisoo to begin practicing skin-to-skin contact between mothers and their premature children after birth. He found that survival rates increased from 10% to 50% in very low birth weight babies. Findings suggested that "Kangaroo Mother Care" stabilization may be more effective than an incubator.
In 1995, Bergman brought this "new" method to South Africa and in 2000, it became the official policy for the care of premature babies in the hospitals of the Western Cape province.
Bergman contributed to the naming and formal description of Kangaroo Mother Care, and the subsequent WHO guidelines.
Since 2006 he has worked freelance, focusing on promoting and researching the use of skin-to-skin contact from birth, and on developing a better understanding of the neuroscience of birth, skin-to-skin, breastfeeding, bonding, and secure attachment.
Bergman is the founder of the International Network of Kangaroo Mother Care (INK), and a member of the advisory board of La Leche League, South Africa d, the Breastfeeding Association of SA, the International Lactation Consultants Association, Milk Matters (Human Milk Bank, Cape Town), and a Trustee of the South African Kangaroo Mother Care Foundation.
