I do believe the routine bathing of the baby (scrubbing the bejesus out of
them at our local hospital) goes back way before anyone knew about AIDS
(pre-1985 for public awareness).  I think in the US it has a whole lot to
do with our cleanlieness obsession in general, and with people not wanting
to touch anything that is "icky" and certainly not "bloody" -- it's as
though the baby is born in a dirty/filthy/contaminated state, and you want
to get all that junk off of it as soon as possible.  The smell of blood and
vernix and amniotic fluid is considered disgusting, and you want a nice
clean-smelling (Johnson's baby powder) baby right away.  I did not let my
youngest have a bath in the hospital and the nurses and doctor thought I
was nuts.

Mothers in the US also routinely give the baby a full-body bath every day,
even though the dirty part gets cleaned with every diaper change.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.                         email:
[log in to unmask]
Anthropology Department                               phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University                                    fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX  77843-4352
http://www.prairienet.org/laleche/dettwyler.html

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html