Declining First Bath

sschwege · October 2012

When I had DD the nurse gave her her first bath in our room after she was born. I am considering declining the first bath for this baby. My hospital is pretty natural birth friendly, so I doubt they would be surprised or care. But I'm just curious of people's personal experiences. When did you bath your baby? Did you just wait for the umbilical cord to fall off? What about the bodily fluids, did they just rub off with a good toweling? How did the baby smell afterward? TIA!

blush64 · October 2012

After holding and nursing and spending time just enjoying them I bathed them. I didn't see a need not to.

tmwanyo · October 2012

I think after doing skin to skin breastfeeding and all that good stuff there is really no reason to not give them a bath. It also reduces the amount of bacteria on the skin. Also if your baby has hair there may be dried blood in it to. I personally wouldnt not dried blood in my hair or other body fluids left on me, so I wouldnt want to leave it on my newborn either. Also you could ask if YOU and your husband could give the bath and the nurses can help you too, if that seems like a better compromise. And sponge bathing is recommended until the cord falls off so it is able to dry and fall off.

mrsodonnell12 · October 2012

We will be requesting that DH and I do the first bath.

annabelle.27 · October 2012

I had a water birth so he sort of cleaned off during that. He was partially submerged after the birth for a while as he laid on my chest. When we got out of the tub he was towelled off which seemed to get rid of what remained of the gunk. He didnt have another bath until later. Not sure exactly when, sometime that day or the next.

It sounds stupid, but I dislike how the hospital handled my first son's birth. I had a csection and they bathed and dressed him before I even got to see him. Like I said, it sounds stupid, but I was bitter that when I finally got to see him all I could see was his face smushed between his swaddle and toque. When we returned to our room I made my husband undress him. I had wanted too see his little fingers and toes, make sure he was healthy, etc. I really preferred the birth of our second son and holding him, gunk and all, newly born.

twofishes1984 · October 2012

The books I have read, as well as our pediatrician, say that it is good for the baby to keep all that stuff on his skin for a while and it is best to decline the bath for at least 24 hours. Afterwards, not to use soap or lotion unless you have to. Best to just use water. Im planning on declining the bath and doing what the pediatrician recommends. good luck!

mb314 · October 2012

We asked to delay the bath for 24 hours. The vernix is supposedly good for their skin. We ended up not doing the bath until 36 hours or more after birth. The nurses did it, but DH and I went there to watch because it was our first and we didn't know how to do it. It was pretty much just a sponge bath.

Our hospital was natural birth friendly and if we hadn't requested the bath when we did, the baby wouldn't have gotten one before release. They didn't push the bath on us at all.

Once home, we did some spot cleaning the first week, but waited until the circumcision was healed and the cord fell off before doing a real bath (like 2 weeks old).

rica21483 · October 2012

We declined a bath in the hospital. The nurses asked several times and we just kept saying no. We got some looks, but oh well. DD didn't have a bath until about a week and we did a real bath around 3 weeks. She wasn't dirty and the vernix and fluids are good for baby's skin.

KateLouise · October 2012

We were at a birth centre with DD1 and basically had to beg them to show us how to bathe her. They kept saying they don't recommend bathing for a few days. They finally did just before we were discharged, around 2 1/2 days after she was born.

With DD2 I didn't bathe her until she was about a week old (although i did sponge her eyes and bottom)

They really don't need bathing. i did it with DD1 daily more to build a routine. With DD2 our routine has been a bit more hit and miss, and when she was tiny I only bathed her every few days.

oliversmommy32912 · October 2012

twofishes1984:
The books I have read, as well as our pediatrician, say that it is good for the baby to keep all that stuff on his skin for a while and it is best to decline the bath for at least 24 hours. Afterwards, not to use soap or lotion unless you have to. Best to just use water. Im planning on declining the bath and doing what the pediatrician recommends. good luck!

This is what we also found with research. We had them rub the vernix in, rub off the blood and stuff, but wait for the bath. We bathed him when we got home. He never had the peely skin some newborns get. We will do it again for the next baby.

nosoup4u · October 2012

DS1 was a c-section, and he was admitted to the NICU before they could do all the bathing stuff, I think (he was in the hospital in the week, so I have no idea when, just that it did happen). DS2 never got bathed in the hospital, and I totally confused the nurse by telling her I was declining it, hee hee.

We've always been very laid back about bathing babies. DS2 didn't start getting bathed to get cleaned off until he was almost a year, as he just didn't get that dirty (these days, it's a different story!).

Neither of them smelled bad, I promise! Just their umbilical stumps, but that's to be expected either way...

ETA: You're getting close to the end - yay!!

shutupanddance07 · October 2012

I learned in my final childbirth class last night that our birth center doesn't give baths, and why. The vernix is good for baby's skin, and should be allowed to be absorbed. If I don't like the look of the white bits, I can rub them in like lotion, which I'll probably do because I'm fidgety. The smell/taste of amniotic fluid on baby's skin, hands especially, helps stimulate and establish baby's feeding instinct, which in turn helps mom's body to establish a healthy milk supply faster. He'll be toweled off and wiped clean, but we don't want a real wash because we want some of the yucky stuff on him for a while.

drpayne · October 2012

We declined it at the hospital and no one said anything or questioned us (we were transferred from the birthing center). As others mentioned, the vernix is good for the skin. They wiped him off with a towel where needed - he looked perfectly clean (PPs mentioned "chunks" and dried blood... there was nothing like that.)

RayRay007 · October 2012

We bathed DD about 10 hours after and other than her hair being a little matted, she was pretty clean and didn't smell (bad, anyway). I guess they usually do it after you move to maternity from L&D or, in my case (c/s), recovery. If I recall correctly the nurse offered to do it and I just asked if we could wait. She said to let her know when we were ready and she'd come do it or help us do it. They do it in your room in a little tub (not like some of the nasty videos you see). She asked a couple more times before we were ready, but I think that's just because she felt it was part of her job to do it on her shift. She wasn't pushy about it.

jteneback · October 2012

DD was wisked off to the NICU and even they don't do routine baths. She was wiped down and had her first bath at 3 days old. The nurses asked us and we said OK and did it under supervision.

And I agree they smell just amazing as-is. And the skin is SO soft if the vernix has been rubbed in.

Irisheyes1247 · October 2012

Our hospital waits about 12 hours, but honestly I wish they would have done it sooner. For DD2, her skin was fine but she was born with a TON of hair and it was all crusty and kind of gross. And it wasn't like she stunk, but it wasn't the best smell I ever smelled.

JuneBug86 · October 2012

They didn't bathe DS until the next evening. So, about 24 hours after.

They just toweled him off and he was pretty clean. He smelled fine too.

Dman85 · October 2012

After we bonded for an hour we took a bath together with my husband helping wash the baby while I held him in the water with me. It's actually what they do at our hospital.

sschwege · October 2012

Dman85:
After we bonded for an hour we took a bath together with my husband helping wash the baby while I held him in the water with me. It's actually what they do at our hospital.

That is really cool!

tokenhoser · October 2012

First bath was a tub bath about 10 hours after he was born. We didn't do the sponge bath thing at all.

Next time we'll do about the same thing - delay a bit to keep his/her temp up more than anything.

Some hospitals will require the nurses to wear gloves until after the first bath... which can make them negative toward delaying it.

ForeverEverAfter · October 2012

I also plan on towelling off but waiting for a bath. I did research on tub bathing vs sponge bathing as a nursing student and actually got the standard practice changed at that hospital. At the time (2007) the best practice supported in the literature was tub bathing, and it had no negative impact on the stump. The hospital here (which is behind the times in many ways) does sponge baths with regular baby soap-which I don't agree with, so Ill be doing the first bath myself. If the baby has hair then I'll do it in the hospital so that there isn't dried gunk in it. I'll bring my own soap just in case, but my plan is to just use warm water.

memo9 · October 2012

annabelle.27:
I had a water birth so he sort of cleaned off during that. He was partially submerged after the birth for a while as he laid on my chest. When we got out of the tub he was towelled off which seemed to get rid of what remained of the gunk. He didnt have another bath until later. Not sure exactly when, sometime that day or the next. It sounds stupid, but I dislike how the hospital handled my first son's birth. I had a csection and they bathed and dressed him before I even got to see him. Like I said, it sounds stupid, but I was bitter that when I finally got to see him all I could see was his face smushed between his swaddle and toque. When we returned to our room I made my husband undress him. I had wanted too see his little fingers and toes, make sure he was healthy, etc. I really preferred the birth of our second son and holding him, gunk and all, newly born.

Totally not silly! I missed the "gooey baby moment" with my daughter and it makes me really sad They whisked her away immediately to be checked out because there was meconium present.

StefandTodd · October 2012

I'll just echo what all the PP's have said about my reasons for asking (in my birth plan) that we give him his first bath at home. Nurses did wear gloves, but I'm all good with that and they weren't opposed to it at all...just wanted to explain to me why and ask me not to be offended (I was not).

In addition to the reasons above, for me it just felt sort of common sensical to not wipe water onto a baby so freshly out of their perfectly climate-controlled 98 degree womb environment in an air conditioned hospital when they're working so hard at first to be able to regulate and control their own body temperatures for the first time ever. I think of getting out of the shower and that moment of chill, and I just didn't think there was any reason to put that onto him in the first 48-72 hours of his life. We bathed him our first night home, which was about 60 hours after he was born and we did everything in the steamy warm bathroom with lots of skin to skin...just felt like the right thing for us.

This baby will be born at home, and we'll wait about the same amount of time to give him his first bath.

FWIW, no, there were no odd/foul smells, no blood or gunk...he looked and smelled perfect without a bath.

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