A project at the School of Medicine to test a new technique for promoting the growth of infants with low birth weights has received a $4,500 grant from Ronald McDonald House Charities of Connecticut and Western Massachusetts.
The medical school is one of four nonprofit organizations in the New Haven area that have received a total of $50,098 from Ronald McDonald House Charities as part of the organization's ongoing effort to improve the lives of area children.
Titled "Kangaroo Care for Premature Infants," the Yale project will evaluate the effectiveness of giving premature babies a few hours of skin-to-skin contact each day. Using this technique, physicians hope to decrease the developmental complications common in low-birthweight babies.
Health care professionals in the Yale Child Study Center will collaborate on the project with their colleagues in the section of neonatology in the medical school's pediatrics department and the Children's Hospital at Yale-New Haven.