October 2011 Moms

PSA: Mittens

MH and I went to a basics of baby care class over the weekend at our hospital. The nurse teaching the class informed us that 6 babies had died in South Florida this year from choking on mittens meant to keep babies from scratching their faces.

It seems that the babies are putting their mitten covered hands in their mouths and when pulling their hands away, the mittens are getting caught in their mouths.

I hadn't thought of this possibility before. I went home and threw out all of the mittens we had purchased. I plan on just filing DS's nails with a baby emory board.

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Re: PSA: Mittens

  • Wow! I never really liked the mittens to begin with.
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  • the only mittens i use are those that are attached to long sleeve onesies--LO can't get them off.

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  • You can get the long-sleeved onesies that have the mittens attached. That way, if baby does happen to pull away the mitten doesn't come away in his mouth but remains attached to the sleeve.

    I've never heard of this and it seems a little fear-mongering, KWIM? I mean be careful yes, but it seems a little extreme to throw out all the mittens. 

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  • imageBettyBookworm:

    I've never heard of this and it seems a little fear-mongering, KWIM? I mean be careful yes, but it seems a little extreme to throw out all the mittens. 

    I get what you are saying but I figured that the risk didn't seem any greater than the suffocating risk associated with bumpers and bumpers are treated as if they are death traps.

    Filing LO's nails or buying onsies with mittens attached doesn't seem like a big hardship so I figure why risk it?

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  • Huh.  We just finished our registry last night and bought a pack, and I just took all the tags off like half an hour ago.  I think it's definitely worth bringing attention to but I was hoping not to have to use them much anyway (we also bought a pack of the onesies with attached mittens).
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  • My hospital recommended using socks over mittens. Socks aren't as easy for LO to remove.
  • We had these with DD but they never stayed on very well and ended up ditching them very soon after she was born. She she was sleeping she was mostly swaddled anyway, so there was no need to have mittens on her. 

    We have 1 pair for DS just in case. Otherwise the outfits with the mittens attached are what we will be using... 

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  • maybe I will just use the mittens when I am awake with her or someone else is watching her. 

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  • i never heard of this either and we used mittens all the time w/ DS b/c he'd always slice his face w/ his nails.  I tried to file the nails but it was so hard for some reason.  However i'm not sure we ever put DS down for naps w/ the mittens on?? 
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  • imagerkto:

    maybe I will just use the mittens when I am awake with her or someone else is watching her. 

    That's what we did with DD.  It was nbd.

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  • An alternative to the mittens is that most newborn onesies actually have the little fold over piece on them, where you can just fold the fabric over their hands.

     

    ETA: Sorry, I just saw the 500 other posts saying this same thing.

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  • When my son was in the NICU, he used to wear mittens that we tied with a ribbon... 

    Just a thought, though... Aren't babies supposed to breathe only through their noses?  I'm pretty confident that newborns don't have the reflex to breathe through their mouths.

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  • imagestardust317:
    My hospital recommended using socks over mittens. Socks aren't as easy for LO to remove.

    Yeah, we just used socks. They actually stay on, especially if you pull them up over your LO's sleeves. Mittens are waste of $$.

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  • Wow I didn't even think of this and we have been very anal about anything safety!  Thanks for bringing this up.  In every u/s we've had the baby's hands have been by her face so we got some mittens but it sounds like I'll only let her wear them when I'm watching her and never while she's sleeping.  We do plan on swaddling her with arms in and also have the onesies with the built in mittens too. 
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