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Date: | Sun, 22 May 2011 17:27:05 +0100 |
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What is the evidence for bathing babies in hospital at all?
I am excluding obvious needs - baby covered in mec, perhaps.
Can't the mothers bath the babies at home?
Is there really an infection risk if the babies are left unbathed?
I have a personal insight into this. My first baby was born 31 years
ago and because of some mix up or other, she missed the
then-regulation bath. The routine was in those days that you were not
'allowed' to bath the baby without seeing it done first and somehow
or other, over the 8 days I was there, no one got round to finding
time to demo bathing to me. Obviously I kept her clean with 'topping
and tailing' with cotton wool balls and water. But no bathing. I can
still recall the *delicious* smell she had on her - it was raw and
earthy and she still had a little bit of my dried blood on her
(sparse) hair which also smelled lovely to me!
Finally, on day 10, and by now at home, the community midwife offered
to do a demo for me, and so out came the baby bath tub and she was
dunked.
I remember feeling very sad when the lovely smell went :(
Of course it's only years and years later that I recognised the power
of this. Babies 2 and 3 were bathed pretty soon after birth, and in
the case of no 3, almst immediately, even though it was a home birth
and I could have just said 'no'.
So - my question is: why bath new babies at all? Now we know more
than ever the importance of skin to skin, of keeping mothers and
babies together, and the way all the senses are stimulated, why not
just leave them in all their birthy glory?!
Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK
--
http://www.heatherwelford.co.uk
http://heatherwelford.posterous.com
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