Progress does come slowly but surely at times.  Our nurses now wait
until after the initial feeding to do the bath.  It is done in the room
with mom and whoever is there with her.  In most cases it is also the
bath "demo" as babies usually don't get a full bath again before
discharge (except for one nurse who won't give up the daily bathing and
lathering the baby with lotion etc.-arrggghhh!).  I'd like to see it
delayed even further, but there are a couple reasons it's convenient to
do it in the first couple hours.

1 - as mentioned before, "universal precautions" require that the nurses
glove when handling baby until after the first bath and nurses are eager
to get rid of the gloves
2 - the (artificial) warmer is still in the room from delivery and baby
can be kept wet longer while the nurse elaborates on what she's doing
parents questions are answered during the demo

When parents request, the nurses will (although sometimes grudgingly)
delay the bath further.

Winnie

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