Many thanks to everyone's responses to my post re tub baths.
Just to fill you all in on exactly why we are doing this - it will replace
the routine RN bath which is currently done under a faucet away from the
mother in the nursery. We will be keeping moms and babies together all the
time, and giving the bath
in the mother's room. Unfortunatley we dont have LDRP rooms.
While there's a strong case for not doing a bath, we are not sure how well
that would fly with with either staff or the families...certainly I hope in
the climate we work we would be willing not to do  a bath  if that's what the
mother wanted.
After mom and baby spend time skin to skin in delivery room with self
attachment for as long as possible, we transfer them together to the Mom's
room and then after 12 hours or so we think about trying to get the blood out
of the baby's hair....which we' do with warm water and a very small amount of
mild shampoo and no nailbrush...
.We also will use this chance to teach the tub bath, and have a staff member
do a  clinical neonatal brazelton assessment scale (CLNBAS)  a modified and
less timely
version of brazeltons NBAS...Does anyone else do that? when the baby is in
the relaxed state in the bath it's a wonderful time to teach about infant
development, newborn states of awareness and various parenting skills, also
we think, a teachable moment for the parents.
BMC is an inner city hospital with a largely black and immigrant population
and we really try to make the most of teaching the developmental states etc.
at this unique time.
Anne Merewood IBCLC
Boston Medical Center

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