newborn bath

General Health & Wellness • Feb 01, 2016

Delaying Baby’s First Bath: 8 Reasons Why Doctors Recommend Waiting Before Giving a Newborn a Bath

My newborn daughter was screaming during her first bath as I watched helplessly from my bed. She was only about an hour old. I was trying to breastfeed her when the nurse took her from my arms, telling me that the baby had to be bathed before I was transferred to a different room. We don’t do it this way anymore — it is now standard protocol at many hospitals to wait 8-24 hours to give a newborn his or her first bath, and up to 48 hours if the baby was delivered by cesarian section. Delayed newborn bathing is consistent with World Health Organization recommendations and based on medical research. As a hospital-based pediatrician, I know that delayed bathing is the safest medical choice for babies. As a mom, it just seems right.

8 reasons why doctors recommend delaying a newborn’s first bath:

  1. Reduced risk of infection

    Babies are born covered in a white substance called vernix, which is composed of the skin cells your baby made early in development. Vernix contains proteins that prevent common bacterial infections. Think of vernix as a sort of natural antibacterial ointment. Your baby is born covered in this anti-germ barrier. Bacteria such as Group B Strep and E. coli are often transmitted to newborns during delivery and can cause bloodstream infections, pneumonia, and meningitis, and can be fatal. These are not rare infections — we test babies for them daily. Vernix is nature’s protection against these infections.

  2. Stabilized infant blood sugar

    Bathing a baby too soon after birth can cause low blood sugar. Here’s why: in the first few hours after birth, a baby has to adjust to life outside the uterus, including losing the placenta as a source of blood sugar. Bathing causes crying, stress and the release of stress hormones. Stress hormones can cause a baby’s blood sugar to drop, which can make a baby too sleepy to wake up and breastfeed, causing the blood sugar to drop even more. Rarely, low blood sugar can cause neurological injury.

  3. Improved temperature control

    Giving a baby a bath too soon can cause hypothermia. Inside mom it was about 98.6 degrees, but most babies are born in rooms that are about 70 degrees. In the first few hours after birth, a baby has to use a lot of energy to keep warm. If a baby gets too cold, he or she can drop their blood sugar or have other complications.

  4. Improved maternal-infant bonding

    New babies need to snuggle skin-to-skin with their mom be given a chance to try to breastfeed. I have been attending deliveries regularly for more than a decade, and I love it. But those first few minutes of life are not meant to be spent with me, a nurse or any healthcare professional. Those precious few minutes are meant for bonding between baby and parents. As long as the baby does not need help breathing or immediate resuscitation, babies need to be held by their mother. Infants who are held skin-to-skin on mom’s chest have better blood sugar and temperature control and have an easier time learning to breastfeed. We even do skin-to-skin at c-section deliveries. The bath can wait.

  5. Improved breastfeeding

    Studies show more breastfeeding success when moms are allowed to stay skin-to-skin with babies and this time is not interrupted by medical “procedures” or a bath. If you’ve ever struggled to breastfeed a newborn, you know how hard it can be to get them to latch onto your nipple. Breastfeeding can become a stressful burden on a very tired mother. But babies who breastfeed in the first hour of life — and preferably in the first 30 minutes — have a much easier time learning how to latch. Why? Because when the baby is inside mom’s uterus, she is constantly and rhythmically sucking in amniotic fluid and swallowing it.

    At birth, she cries, breaths air and starts to forget how to suck and swallow. If you wait more than an hour to breastfeed, babies can have a hard time latching, sucking and swallowing. If you breastfeed right away, the baby still remembers how to suck and swallow. It’s good to put a baby skin-to-skin between mom’s bare breasts at delivery, so she will be warm, soothed by mom’s voice, find the breast herself, latch right on and start nursing. Moms giggle and cry. They are so happy. This is how the first few minutes of life are meant to be. Forget the bath.

  6. No baby lotion required before a newborn bath

    Vernix is a natural skin moisturizer and skin protectant. Babies need skin protection during the transition from the amniotic fluid into the air environment. If you delay the bath, there is no need for artificially scented baby lotion. Instead, you get to enjoy that new-baby smell.

  7. Everyone will wear gloves

    Hospital workers are always supposed to wear gloves when caring for an unbathed baby, to prevent exposure to body fluids such as amniotic fluid and blood. Some studies have shown that glove-wearing keeps babies safer too, by preventing transmission of common viruses and other infections from workers to babies.

  8. Parents get to enjoy bathing their baby

    After mom has had time to recover, parents can more easily participate in baby’s first bath and it becomes a teaching opportunity between nursing and parents. You can use whatever special baby bath products you choose and watch your baby coo and smile.

Delaying a newborn bath is not yet protocol at some hospitals, but you can still request it. Be sure to include your desire for delayed bathing in your birth plan. Don’t have a birth plan? You need one. Here’s an example to get you started. Before writing your birth plan, be sure to think about these 11 medical decisions to make for your baby before delivery.

Comments

  1. I loved this article and I want to read more about the research behind it. Where can I find references, especially for #2 and #3?

  2. My kids were all born at home. We delayed both cutting the cord and bathing them. Instead of bathing them alone they bathed with me. There was plenty of skin to skin contact and only 1 out of 3 kids cried. The other 2 smiles and were very content. I recommend delaying a lot of things.

  3. I bathe babies in deep warm water(no ramps ) swaddled in a blanket which can be slowly opened under the water . Babies love it and don’t cry at all .

  4. The only reason why a nurse would be used to a baby screaming “bloody murder” at a bath is because hospitals hold a cold newborn out in the chilly air and consider a “bath” to be splashing them with luke-warm water. Of course they will scream. My three have all loved their baths, snuggled up to mom, cocooned in warm weightlessness just like the womb. Babies love body temp water, and they love being curled up with mom, mine have all nursed and then fallen asleep during baths during the first few months.

  5. Lol we waited about a week before the first bath with both our kiddos.

    Seems a bit weird that they would force you to bath a newborn…. “Poor kid has been swimming in gunk for 9 months, we better wash it off as quickly as possible!” uhm, right…

  6. Didn’t even know this was a thing but instincts kicked in…when they asked if I wanted to wait and bathe the baby later I said yes. We spent most of the first 12 hours cuddling skin to skin and breastfeeding. When they finally bathed him he was content and happy during his bath, and I was ready for my bath too. We have been successfully breastfeeding and he is still a very happy baby at 6 weeks old.

  7. Wonderful article. I would love to find the research articles you used to support your findings. I am writing a research paper for one of my classes on delaying neonatal bathing. I have found supporting articles for #2 and #3. I am looking for supporting articles for #1, 4 and 5 if you can be of any assistance that would be great.

  8. When I watched the nurses bathe my daughter, flopping her around like a rag doll while she screamed, I was horrified but I was so in shock it was over by the time I could say anything.

    I wanted to murder this woman. And then revive her and then murder her again.

    Out of all the things I researched that I could say no to that was the one thing I missed.

    Now I’m having another daughter so there is no way I’m letting that happen again!

  9. The lady who gave my baby a bath said she wasn’t a nurse of any kind. She said she was just a hospital volunteer that comes 2 days a week because she loves babies!

  10. I think you may have trouble with #4 and #5. I think all these are great reasons but #4 and #5 are far too subjective to be able to do a formal study and acquire definitive results. There are just too many variables in mother/child bonding and in breastfeeding. My son was born during an emergency c-section and had to be immediately put on a ventilator, then monitored for a few hours after. His first meal was from a bottle from a nurse. When I finally met him a few hours later when he was safe and breathing on his own we had no problems at all breastfeeding and 13 years later still have a very strong, healthy bond. I never even saw him, let alone touched him his first 3-4 hours (and I don’t care because they saved his life!) and it didn’t hurt our bond at all.

  11. My first child was born 60 years ago. .We were in a military hospital that had babies in the nursery for the first 24 hours and with the mothers after that. We were not released from the hospital for 6 days. Because It was such a difficult delivery I could not take care of her, I did not get to even hold her for 5 days. We bonded immediately and have been very close forever. I don’t think that bond depends on the questions presented here, it depends on the mother and the baby.

  12. All spot on! I’d also add skip the artificial vitamin k shot, skip the eye antibiotic, skip the circumcision and skip the vaccines! Your baby does not need any of it, only you and breastmilk.

  13. No, please don’t skip the modern day technology that saves your baby from infection and death.

  14. Please don’t skip the vaccines. These diseases eg measles are making a comeback due to no vaccines and they are very serious.

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