Marianne... I think there is an OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) rule that requires that a newborn who may still have any of mom's body fluid, including blood or amniotic fluid, on its body must be handled with gloved hands only. It's pretty silly, IMO, but I think that's where that protocol originated.
Ami's comments reminded me of a couple of things. When my daughter had her first baby, she was adamant about having no newborn bath at any point while they were in the hospital. We still laugh about the way she expressed that in her birth plan, and I share it with my students now and encourage them to include something similar in theirs. It said:
It is a long-held spiritual tradition in my family that a baby’s first bath is given by the father and maternal grandmother. We would prefer that this be done at home, but please honor this tradition if it is necessary to bathe my baby in the hospital.
LOL. Believe me, we feel very strongly about babies not being bathed by strangers in a hospital, but we don't exactly have a "spiritual tradition" that would dictate such things. She just knew that some people might not mind stepping all over her personal preferences but that most people are reluctant to stomp on people's "long-held spiritual traditions". ;-)
It worked like a charm except that one nurse - who was a lovely person otherwise - commented that no one would be able to handle the baby unless they wore gloves. My daughter smiled and said, "I would want everyone except my family members to wear gloves when they're touching my baby anyway."
They went home about 27 hours after he was born, and my son-in-law and I were happy to uphold our "long-held spiritual tradition" by bathing the baby the NEXT day. He was about 50 hours old when he got his first bath, and it doesn't seem to have done him any lasting harm. He's nearly 7 years old and thriving. LOL. His sister, who is 4.5 years old, was 3 or 4 days old before John and I gave her her first bath. :-)
Cee
--- On Sun, 5/24/09, Marianne Vanderveen-Kolkena <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Marianne Vanderveen-Kolkena <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: newborn bath
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Sunday, May 24, 2009, 12:40 PM
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ami Burnham" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2009 7:59 AM
Subject: [LACTNET] newborn bath
**Hi Ami,
all our local hospitals have gotten used to clients refusing the bath
and are not making an issue out of it, the baby merely gets a sign placed on
his/her bassinet stating "this baby has not been bathed, please wear gloves"
(personally i want any hospital staff who is handling my clients baby's to
be wearing gloves anyway, so i see this as a benefit).
**Just curious (I don't work in a hospital): why would a baby that has not been bathed, need to be handled with gloves only...?
Like someone else said... newborns are not dirty, are they...? A little bit of blood would probably have been wiped off after birth, wouldn't it...?
I don't think that in Dutch maternity wards, nurses are all wearing gloves when they handle babies. Should they be...?
Regards,
Marianne Vanderveen IBCLC, Netherlands
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