The desire to understand and the growing interest in research on the effects of kangaroo mother care in preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit have led to a significant increase in the number of manuscripts published in this field over the past decade. It is therefore necessary to regularly review the state of knowledge on this phenomenon in order to identify progress and constraints, to stimulate reflection, and to encourage progress in future research.

The aim of this study was to determine the current state of scientific production in relation to kangaroo mother care in preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit through bibliometric analysis.

This study presents a review of 212 published papers from the Scopus database (1990–2019).

Two processing software applications were used: VOSviewer and SciMAT. In addition, through a keyword analysis, this study established the hot spot research trends to be developed in future work. The study adhered to the PRISMA-ScR guidelines for quality improvement studies as part of the EQUATOR network.

Our results show that research in this field is going through a time of high productivity and we could sort this growing body of work into different periods, highlighting the most important topics.The analysis shows that most research in this field is focused on five motor topics. These are: prematurity, male, psychology, intensive care neonatal, and major clinical study. The analysis also allowed us to identify four basic and cross-disciplinary topics that need to be developed and that emerge as future research directions: preterm infants, child–parent relations, child development, and skin-to-skin contact.

The main contribution of this work is the creation of a knowledge map on the research in this field. This article provides information on how we can shape the future to provide optimal care for these infants and their parents.