I work in a huge metropolitan hospital in NYC where the women are instructed 
by the staff and their OB's not to bathe in a tub until their 6 week checkup. 
But I remember with great fondness, a lovely Irish obstetrician, who retired 
shortly after I began working there in the late 80's. He used to tell all his 
postpartum mothers that when he was trained in Ireland, nobody had showers 
and everybody took baths and that he never had any complications. So he 
felt it was just fine to have a bath in the postpartum period instead of a 
shower.He was then very likely to quote a Yeats poem or break into a glorious 
Irish pub song and flirt with the entire female staff though he was in his 70's. I 
miss him dearly.

I never heard him okay taking a newborn with an attached umbilical cord into 
the bath with mom....this is purely a response to mom having a bath not baby. 
It does seem that the unhealed cord area might be exposed to mom's 
micororganisms in the tub, not sure what to make of that end of it....

Kathy Lilleskov RN IBCLC

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