This study focuses on the experience of families in the Kangaroo Mother Method (KM) and aims to understand the functioning of the family dynamics and to apprehend the family transformations as a result of their experience in the method. The study used Symbolic Interactionism as a theoretical and Grounded Theory as a methodological reference framework. Data revealed the following phenomena: having an unexpected evolution and outcome of pregnancy, which is a phase in which the parents go through a pregnancy and suffer due to its premature interruption; coping with the prematurity of the child, in which the parents get into the world of prematurity and face the need to act for the child's survival; and living with the decision and the experience together with the child, which reveals the possibility of staying in hospital in the KM or not. These phenomena led to the central category: weighing the risks and benefits between staying with the child in the kangaroo method or with the family.
kangaroo mother method; family; premature