cleaning newborn after birth - Page 2

[acemama]

Our last baby was our first homebirth. He was born at 11:15am and we took an herbal afterbirth bath/soak that evening after everyone had left at maybe 5pm? It was a great realaxing soak for us but I didn't really bathe the baby. He just floated around in my arms and uncurled himself. We loved it

[alton]

Thanks for sharing. It makes sense why they would wash in hospitals though I still think I will add something to my hospital transfer birth plan about not washing off the vernix.
When my son was born, a nurse took him from me in the ward to wash him but there was no hot water so he stayed dirty and I went home several hours later so he never got a proper wash. I think most of the vernix was scraped off though. At home it took me two weeks to get up the courage to do more than top and tail and on every visit, the health advisors used to comment on what lovely skin he had. I was so nervous about being a bad mother that I never admitted not bathing him

[AimeeandBrian]

DD was a 4 days old. We waited until the only vernix left was just white stuff stuck in her hair.

[JennTheMomma]

My first baby was born in a birth center with an OB. Only his head was washed because of meconium in his hair. Other than that the rest of his body was not washed. Our second son will be born at home and we'll probably wash him when his stump falls off, like we did with our first.

[moonglowmama]

Mine took a bath with me in the first few hours, not to clean them necessarily, but just to allow them to uncurl and relax and the herbs in the bath are really good for helping the stump fall off more quickly.

After witnessing a few "baths" in the hospital, I would NEVER allow anyone but myself or dh to clean our baby if we had to transport. They are almost torturous!

[leaves]

I had a waterbirth - DS was wiped and dried about 15 minutes after I gave birth to him, took an herbal bath with me at 3 days (no cleaning, though) and had his first real bath at 1 1/2 weeks.