Hospital NB... Question about vernix and bathing baby.

MrsW101011 · June 2012

I read a short article about how important vernix is for the baby. Did anyone not have the baby bathed after birth and how long did you wait for the first bath? When you're trying to leave the vernix on the baby, do you ask for the baby not to be wiped off or is wiping ok because it's kind of rubbing it in? Really I'm just wondering if anyone has any kind of information on this. I'm not sure if it's worth including in my birth plan.

TIA!

MelissaV10 · June 2012

I'm curious to know this as well.

AndromedaEclipse · June 2012

You rub the vernix in. We're planning on waiting until the cord falls off for a true bath. Other than that, we'll just wipe them down.

allardr · June 2012

My hospital baby class mentioned it a little. They said that's the stuff that keeps baby protected in the "water" so they don't get all wrinkly. Closer to delivery more of it rubs off baby anyway in your belly.

As for what's left when baby comes out...They say just kind of rub it in as you hold baby. When they get around to bathing baby they may even miss some of what's left, but then the woman suggested again just rubbing it in.

canoz · June 2012

With DS, the hospital we delivered at reccomended not bathing for at least 24hrs. We gave DS his first bath about 48hrs after he was born to make sure his skin absorbed all the nutrients. They weren't only concerned about the vernix though, they also stressed any dried blood on him to be left there. Ick I know, but it was just mainly on his scalp anyways.

I guess you could always put it in your birth plan if this is something you really want done. It really depends on your hospitals policy after birth, whether they bath them right away or not.

StefandTodd · June 2012

I had two reasons for requesting (in my birth plan) that baby not be bathed at the hospital. The vernix was one, and the other was that it just seems to me that it's not the best thing to pour water over a naked baby when they already can have such difficulty maintaining their body temperatures (i.e. one reason they put hats on them right away and encourage skin-to-skin/burrito wrap them). My hospital was pretty NB friendly and reasonably happy to oblige. They actually gave me his baby bath to store my placenta on ice in until my H could get the cooler out of the car. Heh.

They made me stay 48 hours (for declining GBS antibiotics), and my birth plan said that I'd like to give him his first bath at home, so he had his first bath around 55 hours old, at home. The only thing the nurses were particular about was putting a note on the bassinet that he was in indicating that he was unbathed...I think it said something like, "baby is recovering naturally and will be bathed at home" or something like that (alert the nurses to wear gloves when touching him, and I think the first part they put to make me feel like they were supportive of my choice despite needing a note and gloves...I didn't mind the gloves at all, but every time they would apologize about it).

I could tell it was a fairly unusual request for them, but they were willing to accomodate it. I'm not sure that every hospital would handle it the same way though.

perplexed59 · June 2012

We waited at least 24hrs for the first bath but it could have been closer to 36 hours. We sort of rubbed the vernix in and rubbed some of it off shortly after birth because she had to get dressed because we were being transported to the hospital. In Canada they don't tell you not to get the cord wet so she had a full in body soak for her first bath. I always think this difference is the funniest. In the states you wait until the cord falls off before having a full on bath and in Canada we don't but we all have fine belly buttons.

*LrCg* · June 2012

We rub the vernix in. I know it helps coat the skin and protects from infection and acts as a moisturizer. Not sure if its just because its our kids or not but my kids never had that shedding of skin that a lot of newborns I know get (and they would have been bathed right away). We never gave a bath until maybe 1 or 1 1/2 weeks old. I just never thought of them as dirty so I never saw a reason to do it. When it was time they just took a bath with DH or me.

drpayne · June 2012

He didn't have much on him but I guess they rubbed it in. I didn't want them to take him out of the room to bathe him. They really didnt seem bothered by the request.

WaitingOnTwoPinkLines · June 2012

We are planning on no bath; we'll rub the vernix in. A lot of the no-bath thing (for us) has to do with the fact that newborns use their sense of smell a lot, & bathing can disrupt that.

tokenhoser · June 2012

We waited about 24 hours on the bath for the body temperature reason, not the vernix reason. Some hospitals will require nurses to wear gloves for an unwashed baby.

theladyjess · June 2012

I can't remember how old my LO was when she had her bath but it was w/in the first 24 hours. I didn't mind too much since she didn't have much vernix on her, she had dried blood in her hair and she had passed meconium before delivery and had poop in her ear.

I was really happy once her cord fell off in the Special Care Nursery-- after 5 days under the bili lights she was getting rather stinky and needed a bath.

JoyfulW&M · June 2012

A lot of people wait either a week or until the cord falls off, what ever is longer...me it would have been a week as my firsts cord dropped off at 4 days and my second at 5 days.

Anyway I don't do a soap bath, but when I go to clean up (both of mine were natural births) after birth I take him with me and kind of rinse him off a little in the bath to get any blood and amniotic fluid off, but most of the vernix stays. My husband won't touch the baby until after the bath so it is worth loosing a little of the vernix so he can hold his son sooner rather then later.

aimeern623 · June 2012

Hi!

I am an RN that "transitions" newborns (I am the one that arrives right before the birth, dries the baby off, resuscitates the baby, does the weight, first medical assessment, footprints, etc). Vernix is good for the skin, however if you don't wipe at least some of it off - your baby can get cold. Cold babies have a variety of problems, including low sugars and not being able to breast feed right away.

My hospital does a full hour of skin to skin after the birth. Even when I have a baby covered in vernix, I get what I can wiped off (it is very sticky). After helping the mother breast feed (or more skin to skin if the baby doesn't care about eating), most of the vernix has already be absorbed by the baby. When I do the bath, I get what I can but don't stress about all of it. It will be completely absorbed within 24 hours anyway.

I wouldn't have a birth plan in the first place...but I understand why some patients choose to have them. I don't think you should worry about adding this though. Your sweet pea will absorb what she/he can in no time! (Please know that we dry and stimulated the baby for a reason, and this can be done on your abdomen! Congrats!

aimeern623 · June 2012

Also - you can ask for the bath to be delayed 24 hours! No biggie!

pixieprincss · June 2012

DS had very little vernix, but we he did have, we rubbed in. We did his first bath once we were home--so he was 72 hours+. This The daytime nurse who we had for our two days in post-partum was very aggressive about pushing a bath and had an "ew...he's toxic" approach to DS. (Not that we cared. We never requested that she touch him.) We finally had to get very firm with her to drop it. The other nurses never mentioned it and the PA assigned to DS was supportive of our delay.

cdelbove · June 2012

My midwife just wiped my son off a little with a blanket when he was a few hours old. He had a lot of vernix on him when he came out. He didn't smell or seem to need a bath so I waited probably 2 or 3 weeks before I bathed him. He was born in December so he was not sweaty or dirty. The vernix was absorbed into the skin and the excess rubbed off quickly.

3003girl · June 2012

LO was a few days old when we bathed her and she hated it.

Our main reason for not bathing her was the sense of smell thing - I read that baby and mother bond better and breastfeed better when baby is not bathed. I needed all the help I could get because LO did not want to latch for a few days. I did shower myself, but didn't soap up because of the scent issue.

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