Well, as long as we're still talking about this subject, I'll share a story.

I had been working with the parents of a 1#10 oz. preemie, while baby was
still in the hospital. When he came home at almost 3 months and under 4 lbs,
we made an appointment for me to go out & see them the next day, to assess
his BFing & see how things were going. The morning I was to go see them, I
got a panic call from the dad to reschedule our appointment because mom &
baby were exhausted, mom had been hysterical most of the night, & the family
was needing to get some sleep. Why - what had happened to decimate these
sensible, intelligent, well-prepared parents?

Well, you guessed it - the bath! The first night home, they felt that they
should bathe the baby, since that's what "real" parents do, and they'd seen
it done at the hospital & thought it was a necessary part of the daily
routine. So they had stripped down this poor little 3#12 oz. babe on the
bathroom floor, at which point he turned quite blue and his pulse-oximeter
was giving his O2 level as being down to 80! Needless to say, this put them
all in a panic! No one had told them that, especially with a little one like
this, it wasn't necessary or even desirable to flop the poor little thing
out bare-naked on the floor and go at him with wet washrags!

I had to laugh at the image of this spectacle, but it isn't funny. And why
had no one taken the time with them to reassure them that this was NOT
something they needed to do? When I used to do the new-parent teaching at
the hospital, I *always* talked about how unnecessary this typical "infant
bath" thing was, and how they could just wipe off any dirty bits, and how
important it was to *not* get all in a state about this bathing ordeal!

Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC Ithaca NY

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