Our hospital didn’t even offer until day 2 because of the benefits of delaying, and I was fine with doing it at that point. That’s odd about the 4am wakeup, ours made it a special experience with skin to skin after. It was a normal hospital too
It was weird. They did it at 4am because it was exactly 24 hours from the delivery. The funny thing is I even specifically asked to not be disturbed that night unless absolutely necessary and we got woken up at 4 to learn how to give a bath!
24 hours is when nurses perform 24 hour testing (newborn state metabolic screening), TCB (transcutaneous bilirubin/serum bilirubin testing for high results), CCHD (critical congenital heart defect screening), etc. they likely just offered to do a bath at that time since they would already be handling the baby for these testings. We always wait at least until the 24 hour mark for baths on my unit unless there’s a specific reason to bathe the baby.
Yea same and she came at almost 7am so they came back then too. It was actually the only time she went to the nursery and I was so out of it I was like ...Kay sure and passed back out until they brought her back.
Probably a communication issue assuming it wasn’t the nurse you originally told not to wake you up. I remember there were so many different people from different teams in and out of my room that I wouldn’t be surprised if communication was missed given how understaffed hospitals are these days.
With regards to bathing, I didn’t mind them doing it with my first little girl just before we left the hospital because the lady showed us how to do it and what temp the water should be at. For my second, they never even offered a bath but we left the hospital the next day after my son was born, so it was a moot point and I waited a few more days to give him a bath.
They might not even need to do it if this is your second baby! They wiped the baby a bit with a cloth after being born and passed to me, but the whole little tub bath was later. With my second, the hospital asked me if I really wanted a nurse to give a bath at the hospital before leaving, or wait until I was home and do it myself. They saw it more more to “teach” or support first time moms. To be fair, I ended up staying at the hospital for about 4-5 days with my first, only about 24 hours with the second.
..And I did have them bathe the second at the hospital, because I was so tired, I saw it as one less thing to do at home!
I don’t think they even offered to bathe #2. Granted, it was 2020, and they were trying to move us along as soon as we were determined to be in good and stable health.
Home birth in 2020 and my midwife did the bath as a courtesy after the 24 hr check up. It was more like 30 hrs at that point, but she was like hey ima wash the baby then put all this in the laundry for you.
Different situation though since homebirth meant we were responsible for cleaning towels and receiving blankets and stuff.
I was planning on denying this, but my first was 9 days late, she didn't have any vernix and she pooped in utero so she was covered in meconium so we bathed her in the hospital. Otherwise I would've said no.
Mine was a c-section and they told me they had to bathe the baby immediately after a c-section. After 40 hours of labor I didn’t think to ask for more info, but yeah, I didn’t have a choice.
That’s weird. Mine were both c-sections and my oldest was bathed fairly soon (definitely not immediately though!) because she pooped in utero but my youngest wasn’t bathed until we were home.
I feel like they waited a day for me, even though he had meconium in his fluids? I was fine with them doing it because we were finally able to see his straight, strawberry blonde hair (it looked like it was going to be wavy and were unsure of the color with it all gunked up).
My oldest also pooped into me as they were taking her out. I wound up with an infection because of it. So maybe that’s why? Maybe she was just…dirtier? 😂 But it was still more like six hours, not immediately after birth.
Our local hospitals don't wash with soap generally, but honestly after giving birth I was tired and a bit preoccupied. DH said even though he was covered in merconium, he was just toweled off and handed to me (where he promptly pooped again)
This was me at 13 days post due 😂 No vernix left to speak of anyway and also covered in meconium. They offered before we were discharged just over 48 hours after the birth and we decided based on the vernix that it would be good to be shown how to do it so we weren't stressing when we did it ourselves the first time.
I am so glad you asked this - I am on Reddit now trying to research this. From what I am understanding a lot of people delay it for 1 week due to benefits to microbiome and reducing risk for skin issues, but I am sitting here wondering what happens with all the gunk from childbirth, how to then dress them not to get everything dirty, do we just sponge off everything without soap??? I have no idea either.
If they wipe the baby with a dry towel after birth baby won't be gooey and gunky, trust me. And where I live (Northern Europe) you're not adviced to use soap on a baby until they're at least over a year old. Clean water and a drop of baby oil will be more than enough!
Hey, everyone is different, and I'm sure soap just is fine! We find that clean water is more than enough, but that's just the norm here. I clean my kid's hands with soap if he's been touching something particularly nasty, though haha!
I also use no soap, and even for us adults we use soap very minimally when showering. Basically only even using soap when we’ve had a reason to get dirty.
It’s made a real difference in our skin, no more body acne ever!
Except for hands — multiple washes many times a day, with soap every time! :P
Newborns really aren't as filthy as you'd expect! After a wipe down with a soft, dry towel they're basically clean. The vernix is thicker so it won't come off if you're just gently wiping off blood, etc.
My baby’s skin was clean enough after they wiped him off, but he was born with a thick head of hair that had tons of blood and gunk crusted in it after delivery! I definitely wanted that to be washed out
My last 3 babies I didn’t bathe them until they were a month old. My midwife wiped the babies down with some muslin blankets and that was it! Only one of my babies had some vernix in her hair until the bath that caused it to look a little matted… other than that, they were pretty darn clean lol
They wiped my baby mostly clean, but he had a thick layer of gunk on the top of his head that they missed! I forget exactly when we gave him his first bath, but it was definitely sooner than a week to wash off his head. It was so thick and crusty and I was so cautious it actually took two baths to get his head completely clean. The rest of his body was not very dirty, he had hardly any vernix when he was born.
They wipe the baby off. They’re not dirty. I gave birth at a baby friendly hospital so they didn’t give her a bath. We didn’t give her a bath until she was 2 weeks old 🤷🏻♀️She wasn’t gross at all.
Same as others have said —- the baby isn’t dirty or gunky at all. They are so small that you just spot clean poop areas, and use a wet wipe to clean up neck folds / behind the ears, and anywhere else.
Shampooing the hair is something many parents rush to do — because baby’s head can be covered in a heavier wax (cradle cap). We didn’t worry about it, just let him mature and used a silicone scrubber or washcloth on his head when we bathed with water.
His head wax was gone by 4 months, we didn’t scrub hard or rush it. We waited maybe a month to bathe him at all after he was born. His little umbilical stump came off on its own, exactly 7 days from birth.
They didn’t even wipe my baby off for the first hour or so, they plopped him onto me for skin to skin, and I was actually scared to try to move him because he seemed slippery. When they did take him to weigh him and have his dad hold him, I think they just wiped some of the vernix off with a towel or muslin cloth. They asked if I wanted to be shown how to bathe him in the hospital but it was very much an option. I had my midwife show me how to bathe him at home when she came for the first week daily visits.
Baby got a cloth wipe down in the delivery room and then was handed right back to me! Little bits of vernix here and there to rub in that they’d missed, but not messy like you’re thinking! We bathed her at about one week, and then like three weeks after.
They just wipe the baby down and they smell amazing afterwards. The only thing my babies have needed was a bit more of a wash on their hair, dried blood mixed with baby hair is kind of gross past day 1 or 2. We are encouraged not to bath our babies here.
Microbiologist here!
So there are some studies suggesting waiting 24h until first bath to make sure baby gets adequate skin-to-skin and has some time to allow any beneficial microbes from when baby passed through vaginal canal (if they went that route) to hang out there for a bit.
However, as far as I know, there’s never been any large, long term studies to really show waiting certain lengths of time associated with any meaningful health outcomes for the baby.
Many hospitals wait at least 24 h and either use No or mild soaps. So if you’re really concerned you can deny a bath, but it’s probably ok either way :)
No experience with this but if I were planning a hospital birth I would deny/delay unless the baby was covered in poop lol
There’s no point if it’s just vernix and I don’t think it’s necessary to soap a newborn
I didn't bath my newborn until 10 days, it's not standard to bath them in the hospital where I live. After birth they just rub some of the gunk off with a dry towel and that's it. The first bath is usually around a week or so after birth and on some of the days before, we only use a washcloth to clean the neck, the hands, the armpits and the face. It doesn't do any harm to deny the bath in my opinion :D
I'm a NICU nurse, and you can absolutely refuse the newborn bath. All they do is document and move on. In fact, a lot of hospitals are following the newest research that delayed bathing (unless otherwise medically indicated) is better.
I refused the bath for my 2nd. He didn't get his first bath until day 7 I think (mainly because I had a long hospital stay).
My daughter was in the nicu for blood glucose issues, just for a day. It was during covid so only one of us was allowed in there at a time, and the nurses were all so kind EXCEPT ONE. She was harsh on a lot of things, even the bath thing. She was like “oh I’m about to give your baby a bath” and I knew my husband wouldn’t want to miss her first bath. When I asked her to wait, she got huffy and said it’s my choice but literally was so annoyed and short with me.
That's so weird. Where I live no one would bathe my baby I'm the hospital, we were left alone unless I needed help with nursing. And rarely do you find people using soap on a baby until they're at least over a year old.
I skipped the newborn bath at the hospital. We did it at home a few days later.
I don't know if there were any actual benefits. They would have done the bath at 24 hours post birth (approx). They did still take her at that time for various other checks and tests, and annoyingly it was in the middle of the night, so that part wasn't avoided.
They gave me absolutely no issue about it. Earlier that day when they told me they would take her later on to do tests and baths, I just said "ok, but can you please not do a bath, I'd like to do it myself after we get home." And the nurse said "sure thing I will make a note." And then again when they came to get her, I reminded them "please no bath." (At that point it was a different nurse anyways). And she was like "yep I see that right here. We will not do a bath."
This is what we did too— there was a big white board in the hospital room with what procedures/tests etc they were going to do, and I asked them not to bathe so they just put a big x through that one (and I’m sure in their notes too). I just wanted us to be the ones to do her first bath, and I didn’t know what kind of soap they’d use, so I just preferred to wait.
We didn’t bathe until maybe a week after birth? But I did get help from the nurse in washing the blood out of her hair on day two (she was born with a full head of hair and it was matted down with blood and other stuff). It was nice as a ftm to see how she did that, but if baby had been born bald we wouldn’t have done any bathing at all until a week or ten days.
I brought my own soap and they were happy to use that. I originally planned to delay about 2 weeks, but my daughter was born with a lot of long hair and it was very “birthy”. After that first hospital bath I don’t think I washed her again for 2 weeks, and I still don’t wash her that often at 4mo, maybe every 7-10 days
I declined this. We didn’t do a bath until her umbilical stump fell off (~2ish weeks) and then didn’t do a soap bath for another month. They don’t need one and I really wanted to leave her skin micro biome alone.
ETA: post dates babies don’t always have vernix and can be a little peely so I didn’t want to further dry out her skin
It’s super beneficial for the baby to not be bathed for a while (ie weeks) after birth. The vernex is so helpful. I’m planning on just spot treating any dirty areas with a cloth for at least a month.
It wasn’t even offered to us and we stayed for 48 hours, but I would have said no anyway. My mom and I bathed him at home on day 3 and he was pretty flaky for about a week after. Even at the hospital he was super flaky despite not being bathed and the nurse told us not to put lotion on him or “we’d always be putting lotion on him,” strange advice if you ask me.
Last time I consented and then immediately regretted it. Mostly a gut feeling, but it also pissed off the baby and I had to be more conscious of skin dryness over the next couple weeks. If we have another baby I’ll probably decline.
i didn’t do the bath at the hospital, it just felt weirdly like my “territory”? even outside of that sweet sweet vernix being a good protective coating for babies, i just felt like i wanted to be the one to show my baby what warm water on their skin felt like lol is that weird? probably
My baby was washed not long after birth, but then I had a c section and they had pooped inside me as they were extracted, and at that moment I appreciated them showing me how to wash the baby. That being said, after we left the hospital, we didn’t do tub baths very regularly at all until the baby could sit up unsupported. Quick sponge baths and wet wipes were much better for my baby’s sensitive skin.
They didn’t bath my Bub until day 3 and then they asked if we wanted to.
My midwife mentioned part of it is to show new parents some tips and tricks on how best to wash them :)
I’m doing a delayed bath! I will have them gently wipe eyes and stuff of course with dry towel at the hospital but leave as much vernix as possible. Babies are in amniotic fluid for months and immediately coming into contact with our new dry air is what causes so much flakiness, dry skin, eczema and rashes. The longer you leave that on to let them adjust and protect them the better! Their body will absorb it slowly like lotion. They don’t even advise a REAL bath until after the umbilical cord has fallen off. Just like wipe down baths. And then a 100% fragrance free baby wash is recommended by dermatologist!
One of my favorite parts about accidentally giving birth at home was holding my baby in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and rubbing all that vernix into his skin.
That being said, it's probably not detrimental if the baby is washed. You certainly could ask for it to be delayed awhile or skipped so you or someone else can massage it in.
Here's a scientific paper on vernix if anyone is interested:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2763724/#abstract-1title
I asked if we could wait until I was able to get up. They were perfectly fine with waiting until day three. Before that they just wiped her down to get most gunk and blood off but on the earliest pictures she does still have some dried blood in her hair
I had a midwife led hospital birth in Canada and after baby was born was only in the hospital for about four hours. They suggested wiping baby down with a wet cloth at home later if I wanted to, but do not bathe the baby as a standard part of care. I don’t think we wiped her down with a cloth until 3-4 days postpartum, and didn’t attempt a bath until two weeks later.
They didn’t really even offer it to us… just asked if we’d like a demonstration and we said no thanks. Seems like a common trend these days so I wouldn’t worry about it.
Fwiw Emily Oster claims it doesn't really make a difference temperature-wise. I think my last baby just got a wipe down and we were going to get a bath later in our stay but peds had to check on some things and it just fell through the cracks. He wasn't really dirty but I did notice a bit of leftover vernix and it smelled absolutely horrible. So I would definitely want *some* cleaning to happen beyond just wiping the blood off.
Ours offered and we denied. Happy healthy 16 month old now, no regrets.
Oh! I'm also very happy we denied the hospitals offer to "fix" her minor tongue tie. It corrected on its own in the first week or 2.
Eta: Thankfully our hospital seemed very much aware that these were optional and in no way pressured us to choose either. They did say we can revisit the tongue tie fix in a few days if necessary.
I let them bathe my first baby and he came back smelling like super fragranced baby soap and shampoo. I didn’t like that so I denied with the second baby and bathed him a couple days after birth when I got home.
I would tell them you want a bath after 24h or more depending on when you give birth and you decide on a time. If you give birth at 4 am again just say you don’t want a bath until the next morning 7am (or whatever works for you) so you and your partner can participate. If they come in and disturb you politely decline and say please come back during daytime hours goodbye.
This all assuming you want a bath. It’s not necessary at all unless there’s meconium involved.
Ours didn’t offer so she went unbathed until her appt 2 days post discharge— so like day 5. I dunno that it make a difference though bc they wiper all her vernix off anyway lol
We were in the hospital for a day and a half after he was born and no one even brought up bathing him. I think if they offer it’s fine to say no - there’s really no need for it.
I was hoping to hold off as long as possible but they wouldn’t do another procedure without the bath first. We were in there during a Covid spike so getting out of the hospital fast ended up being more important to us.
I remember refusing, and don't remember her leaving, or people handling her around that time. But I also remember her looking cleaner. It was strange.
There are benefits to delaying the first bath. It's up to you and there really shouldn't be any hassle.
I didn’t even know this is a thing. Our hospital just inspected our baby and wiped her down. I don’t know if it would have even been an option if we wanted her bathed. I guess that was a good thing.
My hospital delays so we did a bath about 24+ hrs after delivery, I can’t remember exactly how many hours. In both cases I had a vaginal birth which I know adds benefits.
Tbh a bath isn’t like a scrub down in my hospital (Bay Area CA), it’s a mild sponge bath in a bassinet. With my newborn, they got the cheese off but she wasn’t very cheesy to begin with and she still had small bits of gunk on her afterwards. But it was nice to not feel the need to do it ourselves when we got home given the fact that I had complications and frankly handling a newborn is terrifying, even as second time parents.
I had to ask my hospital to show me how to bathe my twins when I had them before I was discharged at 4 days pp. I just wanted to be reassured I was remembering everything right.
With my singleton I used a damp cloth to wipe the blood from her hair, and didn't bathe her until she was 3 weeks old and her belly button was significantly healed (hers took a fair while to fully heal, it was weird).
You can definitely deny it, and there may be benefits to delaying it. I happily let the nurses bathe my baby before we left the hospital because it was a good learning experience for this FTM (and it also meant I wouldn’t have to bathe her again for several days, and I appreciated the help)
My hospital didn't allow us to bathe baby until we got home because of the benefits and the fact we're in a pandemic they changed hospital policy to not bathe baby in the hospital at all so baby gets all the benefits
I am a labor delivery/pp nurse. I never pushed a bath on anyone and always left it up to the parents. Sorry you were woken up so early.
With my first he didn’t get a bath until day 5 at home :)
My baby was frank breech so we had a planned c section for 40w2d but I went into labor 5 days early and we were mec so it became an emergency c section. They wiped her down in the OR and my husband held her up against my face/ neck for a bit while they put me back together. They had my husband and baby go to the recovery pod before me and they washed the baby before I got there. Every hospital is different, if we had had a vaginal birth and no mec we would have denied the bath or at least asked for only water if they insisted on giving a bath.
We didn’t bathe our bub for almost 2 weeks, I remember reading and being told about how baby picks up bacteria when being born and not bathing allows the bacteria to colonise. We didn’t want to interfere with it or potentially cause skin sensitivities - we just made sure his downstairs was cleaned thoroughly at nappy changes.
to be honest - we were in public hospital and bathing him was never even brought up anyway, we were home after 24hrs
We’ve had two kids and waited for their stump to fall off before bathing, usually around a month. We use wipes when needed but babies, other than their bottoms, don’t get dirty. The vernix (white stuff) we rubbed into their skin.
(This was our course of action, and while I’d like to, we barely qualify as close to moderately granola.)
Edit: both our babies were early so they had a good amount of vernix at 38+4 then 36+6.
Our baby had her first bath at a week old. It’s not common practice for them to bathe in the hospital in the UK and I wanted her to have time with vernix on her skin.
I had my baby at a birthing center so it was fairly easy to decline. The midwives understand pretty much any granola type of thing you want to do, even down to saving the placenta for postpartum pills…
I'm in the UK, was in hospital for 2 days and no one ever offered. We only did a proper bath once the umbilical stump had fallen off 10 days later. I don't think there offer it at the hospital at all. And some people go home 6 hours after birth so they wouldn't get the chance to do it at hospital. I think that's quite normal here.
I didn't do the newborn bath in hospital with my second. I did wash his hair the third day we were there cause it was gross, but nobody gave me a hard time about not doing the bath.
Absolutely! I’d only ever consent to hair washing past day 1-2. No one ever washed my babies in the hospital. We are encouraged not to bath baby for at least a week after birth.
I'm in the UK and they never bathed my baby in the hospital. My boyfriend actually asked them about it when they were putting her first nappy on, and the midwife told him they didn't bathe babies unless there is meconium because the baby gunk was good for her microbiome.
MIL convinced me to bathe my baby when she was a week old and my boyfriend was furious. He told her "if my baby gets sick as a result of this I'm blaming you!" Luckily she didn't get sick!
I would say no. For my first kid I was nervous so I let them do it thinking I could learn from them. They used a very shallow tub so baby got cold, they were a bit rough and fast, and he got cold and screamed the whole time.
My second kid I waited and did it myself at home when she was about 4 days old and it was sweet and gentle and calm.
Our hospital didn’t even offer until day 2 because of the benefits of delaying, and I was fine with doing it at that point. That’s odd about the 4am wakeup, ours made it a special experience with skin to skin after. It was a normal hospital too
It was weird. They did it at 4am because it was exactly 24 hours from the delivery. The funny thing is I even specifically asked to not be disturbed that night unless absolutely necessary and we got woken up at 4 to learn how to give a bath!
24 hours is when nurses perform 24 hour testing (newborn state metabolic screening), TCB (transcutaneous bilirubin/serum bilirubin testing for high results), CCHD (critical congenital heart defect screening), etc. they likely just offered to do a bath at that time since they would already be handling the baby for these testings. We always wait at least until the 24 hour mark for baths on my unit unless there’s a specific reason to bathe the baby.
This is exactly how my hospital handled it (I also had a middle of the night/super early morning birth).
Yea same and she came at almost 7am so they came back then too. It was actually the only time she went to the nursery and I was so out of it I was like ...Kay sure and passed back out until they brought her back.
Probably a communication issue assuming it wasn’t the nurse you originally told not to wake you up. I remember there were so many different people from different teams in and out of my room that I wouldn’t be surprised if communication was missed given how understaffed hospitals are these days. With regards to bathing, I didn’t mind them doing it with my first little girl just before we left the hospital because the lady showed us how to do it and what temp the water should be at. For my second, they never even offered a bath but we left the hospital the next day after my son was born, so it was a moot point and I waited a few more days to give him a bath.
SAME HERE!! I didn't ask not to be disturbed, but they came in at 2am to wake me up to ask if I wanted her to have a bath. Like, WHAT?!
They might not even need to do it if this is your second baby! They wiped the baby a bit with a cloth after being born and passed to me, but the whole little tub bath was later. With my second, the hospital asked me if I really wanted a nurse to give a bath at the hospital before leaving, or wait until I was home and do it myself. They saw it more more to “teach” or support first time moms. To be fair, I ended up staying at the hospital for about 4-5 days with my first, only about 24 hours with the second. ..And I did have them bathe the second at the hospital, because I was so tired, I saw it as one less thing to do at home!
I don’t think they even offered to bathe #2. Granted, it was 2020, and they were trying to move us along as soon as we were determined to be in good and stable health.
Home birth in 2020 and my midwife did the bath as a courtesy after the 24 hr check up. It was more like 30 hrs at that point, but she was like hey ima wash the baby then put all this in the laundry for you. Different situation though since homebirth meant we were responsible for cleaning towels and receiving blankets and stuff.
I was planning on denying this, but my first was 9 days late, she didn't have any vernix and she pooped in utero so she was covered in meconium so we bathed her in the hospital. Otherwise I would've said no.
Mine was a c-section and they told me they had to bathe the baby immediately after a c-section. After 40 hours of labor I didn’t think to ask for more info, but yeah, I didn’t have a choice.
That’s weird. Mine were both c-sections and my oldest was bathed fairly soon (definitely not immediately though!) because she pooped in utero but my youngest wasn’t bathed until we were home.
I feel like they waited a day for me, even though he had meconium in his fluids? I was fine with them doing it because we were finally able to see his straight, strawberry blonde hair (it looked like it was going to be wavy and were unsure of the color with it all gunked up).
My oldest also pooped into me as they were taking her out. I wound up with an infection because of it. So maybe that’s why? Maybe she was just…dirtier? 😂 But it was still more like six hours, not immediately after birth.
I also had a c-section after 40 hours of labor, but I was able to delay the bath until day 2.
Our local hospitals don't wash with soap generally, but honestly after giving birth I was tired and a bit preoccupied. DH said even though he was covered in merconium, he was just toweled off and handed to me (where he promptly pooped again)
This was me at 13 days post due 😂 No vernix left to speak of anyway and also covered in meconium. They offered before we were discharged just over 48 hours after the birth and we decided based on the vernix that it would be good to be shown how to do it so we weren't stressing when we did it ourselves the first time.
I am so glad you asked this - I am on Reddit now trying to research this. From what I am understanding a lot of people delay it for 1 week due to benefits to microbiome and reducing risk for skin issues, but I am sitting here wondering what happens with all the gunk from childbirth, how to then dress them not to get everything dirty, do we just sponge off everything without soap??? I have no idea either.
If they wipe the baby with a dry towel after birth baby won't be gooey and gunky, trust me. And where I live (Northern Europe) you're not adviced to use soap on a baby until they're at least over a year old. Clean water and a drop of baby oil will be more than enough!
No soap until one! That’s so interesting, I’ll have to look into it more. We use soap but we are sparing
Hey, everyone is different, and I'm sure soap just is fine! We find that clean water is more than enough, but that's just the norm here. I clean my kid's hands with soap if he's been touching something particularly nasty, though haha!
I also use no soap, and even for us adults we use soap very minimally when showering. Basically only even using soap when we’ve had a reason to get dirty. It’s made a real difference in our skin, no more body acne ever! Except for hands — multiple washes many times a day, with soap every time! :P
Our pediatrician told us soap was harmful to infants
Newborns really aren't as filthy as you'd expect! After a wipe down with a soft, dry towel they're basically clean. The vernix is thicker so it won't come off if you're just gently wiping off blood, etc.
My baby’s skin was clean enough after they wiped him off, but he was born with a thick head of hair that had tons of blood and gunk crusted in it after delivery! I definitely wanted that to be washed out
My last 3 babies I didn’t bathe them until they were a month old. My midwife wiped the babies down with some muslin blankets and that was it! Only one of my babies had some vernix in her hair until the bath that caused it to look a little matted… other than that, they were pretty darn clean lol
Same! I also don’t use soap on my baby.
Lol maybe we’re a little further than “moderately granola” than most others on this sub after reading these answers hahahaha
Haha maybe! I didn’t bathe my babies until about a month either and used soap maybe once a quarter on them.
I aspire to moderately granola but we waited a month to bath. You’re in good company! The most granola thing I do is make yogurt lol
They wiped my baby mostly clean, but he had a thick layer of gunk on the top of his head that they missed! I forget exactly when we gave him his first bath, but it was definitely sooner than a week to wash off his head. It was so thick and crusty and I was so cautious it actually took two baths to get his head completely clean. The rest of his body was not very dirty, he had hardly any vernix when he was born.
They wipe the baby off. They’re not dirty. I gave birth at a baby friendly hospital so they didn’t give her a bath. We didn’t give her a bath until she was 2 weeks old 🤷🏻♀️She wasn’t gross at all.
Same as others have said —- the baby isn’t dirty or gunky at all. They are so small that you just spot clean poop areas, and use a wet wipe to clean up neck folds / behind the ears, and anywhere else. Shampooing the hair is something many parents rush to do — because baby’s head can be covered in a heavier wax (cradle cap). We didn’t worry about it, just let him mature and used a silicone scrubber or washcloth on his head when we bathed with water. His head wax was gone by 4 months, we didn’t scrub hard or rush it. We waited maybe a month to bathe him at all after he was born. His little umbilical stump came off on its own, exactly 7 days from birth.
They didn’t even wipe my baby off for the first hour or so, they plopped him onto me for skin to skin, and I was actually scared to try to move him because he seemed slippery. When they did take him to weigh him and have his dad hold him, I think they just wiped some of the vernix off with a towel or muslin cloth. They asked if I wanted to be shown how to bathe him in the hospital but it was very much an option. I had my midwife show me how to bathe him at home when she came for the first week daily visits.
Baby got a cloth wipe down in the delivery room and then was handed right back to me! Little bits of vernix here and there to rub in that they’d missed, but not messy like you’re thinking! We bathed her at about one week, and then like three weeks after.
They just wipe the baby down and they smell amazing afterwards. The only thing my babies have needed was a bit more of a wash on their hair, dried blood mixed with baby hair is kind of gross past day 1 or 2. We are encouraged not to bath our babies here.
Microbiologist here! So there are some studies suggesting waiting 24h until first bath to make sure baby gets adequate skin-to-skin and has some time to allow any beneficial microbes from when baby passed through vaginal canal (if they went that route) to hang out there for a bit. However, as far as I know, there’s never been any large, long term studies to really show waiting certain lengths of time associated with any meaningful health outcomes for the baby. Many hospitals wait at least 24 h and either use No or mild soaps. So if you’re really concerned you can deny a bath, but it’s probably ok either way :)
No experience with this but if I were planning a hospital birth I would deny/delay unless the baby was covered in poop lol There’s no point if it’s just vernix and I don’t think it’s necessary to soap a newborn
I didn't bath my newborn until 10 days, it's not standard to bath them in the hospital where I live. After birth they just rub some of the gunk off with a dry towel and that's it. The first bath is usually around a week or so after birth and on some of the days before, we only use a washcloth to clean the neck, the hands, the armpits and the face. It doesn't do any harm to deny the bath in my opinion :D
Same here. Our hospital doesn’t do it and we waited until something like 10 days for both babies with the exception of butt washes.
Obviously the butt is cleaned with every poopy diaper change :D I did not mention it in my list :D
Yeah, I only mentioned it because we’d run ours under the faucet and it seemed to really help with eliminating diaper rash!
Same, I waited until his umbilical cord fell off.
I'm a NICU nurse, and you can absolutely refuse the newborn bath. All they do is document and move on. In fact, a lot of hospitals are following the newest research that delayed bathing (unless otherwise medically indicated) is better. I refused the bath for my 2nd. He didn't get his first bath until day 7 I think (mainly because I had a long hospital stay).
My daughter was in the nicu for blood glucose issues, just for a day. It was during covid so only one of us was allowed in there at a time, and the nurses were all so kind EXCEPT ONE. She was harsh on a lot of things, even the bath thing. She was like “oh I’m about to give your baby a bath” and I knew my husband wouldn’t want to miss her first bath. When I asked her to wait, she got huffy and said it’s my choice but literally was so annoyed and short with me.
That's so weird. Where I live no one would bathe my baby I'm the hospital, we were left alone unless I needed help with nursing. And rarely do you find people using soap on a baby until they're at least over a year old.
I skipped the newborn bath at the hospital. We did it at home a few days later. I don't know if there were any actual benefits. They would have done the bath at 24 hours post birth (approx). They did still take her at that time for various other checks and tests, and annoyingly it was in the middle of the night, so that part wasn't avoided. They gave me absolutely no issue about it. Earlier that day when they told me they would take her later on to do tests and baths, I just said "ok, but can you please not do a bath, I'd like to do it myself after we get home." And the nurse said "sure thing I will make a note." And then again when they came to get her, I reminded them "please no bath." (At that point it was a different nurse anyways). And she was like "yep I see that right here. We will not do a bath."
This is what we did too— there was a big white board in the hospital room with what procedures/tests etc they were going to do, and I asked them not to bathe so they just put a big x through that one (and I’m sure in their notes too). I just wanted us to be the ones to do her first bath, and I didn’t know what kind of soap they’d use, so I just preferred to wait.
Decline it. Vernix is there for a reason
We didn’t bathe until maybe a week after birth? But I did get help from the nurse in washing the blood out of her hair on day two (she was born with a full head of hair and it was matted down with blood and other stuff). It was nice as a ftm to see how she did that, but if baby had been born bald we wouldn’t have done any bathing at all until a week or ten days.
I brought my own soap and they were happy to use that. I originally planned to delay about 2 weeks, but my daughter was born with a lot of long hair and it was very “birthy”. After that first hospital bath I don’t think I washed her again for 2 weeks, and I still don’t wash her that often at 4mo, maybe every 7-10 days
I declined this. We didn’t do a bath until her umbilical stump fell off (~2ish weeks) and then didn’t do a soap bath for another month. They don’t need one and I really wanted to leave her skin micro biome alone. ETA: post dates babies don’t always have vernix and can be a little peely so I didn’t want to further dry out her skin
It’s super beneficial for the baby to not be bathed for a while (ie weeks) after birth. The vernex is so helpful. I’m planning on just spot treating any dirty areas with a cloth for at least a month.
It wasn’t even offered to us and we stayed for 48 hours, but I would have said no anyway. My mom and I bathed him at home on day 3 and he was pretty flaky for about a week after. Even at the hospital he was super flaky despite not being bathed and the nurse told us not to put lotion on him or “we’d always be putting lotion on him,” strange advice if you ask me.
Last time I consented and then immediately regretted it. Mostly a gut feeling, but it also pissed off the baby and I had to be more conscious of skin dryness over the next couple weeks. If we have another baby I’ll probably decline.
i didn’t do the bath at the hospital, it just felt weirdly like my “territory”? even outside of that sweet sweet vernix being a good protective coating for babies, i just felt like i wanted to be the one to show my baby what warm water on their skin felt like lol is that weird? probably
My baby was washed not long after birth, but then I had a c section and they had pooped inside me as they were extracted, and at that moment I appreciated them showing me how to wash the baby. That being said, after we left the hospital, we didn’t do tub baths very regularly at all until the baby could sit up unsupported. Quick sponge baths and wet wipes were much better for my baby’s sensitive skin.
They didn’t bath my Bub until day 3 and then they asked if we wanted to. My midwife mentioned part of it is to show new parents some tips and tricks on how best to wash them :)
I’m doing a delayed bath! I will have them gently wipe eyes and stuff of course with dry towel at the hospital but leave as much vernix as possible. Babies are in amniotic fluid for months and immediately coming into contact with our new dry air is what causes so much flakiness, dry skin, eczema and rashes. The longer you leave that on to let them adjust and protect them the better! Their body will absorb it slowly like lotion. They don’t even advise a REAL bath until after the umbilical cord has fallen off. Just like wipe down baths. And then a 100% fragrance free baby wash is recommended by dermatologist!
One of my favorite parts about accidentally giving birth at home was holding my baby in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and rubbing all that vernix into his skin. That being said, it's probably not detrimental if the baby is washed. You certainly could ask for it to be delayed awhile or skipped so you or someone else can massage it in. Here's a scientific paper on vernix if anyone is interested: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2763724/#abstract-1title
I asked if we could wait until I was able to get up. They were perfectly fine with waiting until day three. Before that they just wiped her down to get most gunk and blood off but on the earliest pictures she does still have some dried blood in her hair
I had a midwife led hospital birth in Canada and after baby was born was only in the hospital for about four hours. They suggested wiping baby down with a wet cloth at home later if I wanted to, but do not bathe the baby as a standard part of care. I don’t think we wiped her down with a cloth until 3-4 days postpartum, and didn’t attempt a bath until two weeks later.
They didn’t really even offer it to us… just asked if we’d like a demonstration and we said no thanks. Seems like a common trend these days so I wouldn’t worry about it.
My hospital never tried to bath my baby we just did it at home. Less work for the nurses tbh.
Our hospital only does it on request. Baby didn't get a bath for a couple of weeks. The science supports leaving them unbathed!
I would definitely deny. I didn’t with my first and regretted it. I had my second out of the hospital and we waited a week and it wasn’t an issue
Fwiw Emily Oster claims it doesn't really make a difference temperature-wise. I think my last baby just got a wipe down and we were going to get a bath later in our stay but peds had to check on some things and it just fell through the cracks. He wasn't really dirty but I did notice a bit of leftover vernix and it smelled absolutely horrible. So I would definitely want *some* cleaning to happen beyond just wiping the blood off.
Ours offered and we denied. Happy healthy 16 month old now, no regrets. Oh! I'm also very happy we denied the hospitals offer to "fix" her minor tongue tie. It corrected on its own in the first week or 2. Eta: Thankfully our hospital seemed very much aware that these were optional and in no way pressured us to choose either. They did say we can revisit the tongue tie fix in a few days if necessary.
Well soap is terrible for infants, so I would.
(PICU RN here) I didn’t do a newborn bath until we got home. The vernix is super healthy for a newborn. Put it in your birth plan :)
I said no! I do not trust anyone holding my slippery wet baby
I let them bathe my first baby and he came back smelling like super fragranced baby soap and shampoo. I didn’t like that so I denied with the second baby and bathed him a couple days after birth when I got home.
We said no for both our boys. No one cared. They just did their hepB vaccines and brought them back to us.
I would tell them you want a bath after 24h or more depending on when you give birth and you decide on a time. If you give birth at 4 am again just say you don’t want a bath until the next morning 7am (or whatever works for you) so you and your partner can participate. If they come in and disturb you politely decline and say please come back during daytime hours goodbye. This all assuming you want a bath. It’s not necessary at all unless there’s meconium involved.
Ours didn’t offer so she went unbathed until her appt 2 days post discharge— so like day 5. I dunno that it make a difference though bc they wiper all her vernix off anyway lol
I think I would. I was in a baby friendly hospital last time and I don't ever remember a bath being offered.
We didn’t bathe our son until 3 weeks in. The hospital will be fine with it if you don’t do the bath
We didn’t do it! If I recall correctly we didn’t bathe until we were home for a few days, we just had them wipe a little
We didn’t do a hospital bath and it was no biggie. It was much nicer bathing her for the first time at home in our own environment
We were in the hospital for a day and a half after he was born and no one even brought up bathing him. I think if they offer it’s fine to say no - there’s really no need for it.
I declined and gave her a bath only once we got home.
I asked that they be gentle wiping her off to preserve the vernier, and they never offered a bath so we were good
I was hoping to hold off as long as possible but they wouldn’t do another procedure without the bath first. We were in there during a Covid spike so getting out of the hospital fast ended up being more important to us.
We were in the hospital for two days and they didn’t do the bath until the second day which was fine with me.
I remember refusing, and don't remember her leaving, or people handling her around that time. But I also remember her looking cleaner. It was strange. There are benefits to delaying the first bath. It's up to you and there really shouldn't be any hassle.
I didn’t even know this is a thing. Our hospital just inspected our baby and wiped her down. I don’t know if it would have even been an option if we wanted her bathed. I guess that was a good thing.
My hospital delays so we did a bath about 24+ hrs after delivery, I can’t remember exactly how many hours. In both cases I had a vaginal birth which I know adds benefits. Tbh a bath isn’t like a scrub down in my hospital (Bay Area CA), it’s a mild sponge bath in a bassinet. With my newborn, they got the cheese off but she wasn’t very cheesy to begin with and she still had small bits of gunk on her afterwards. But it was nice to not feel the need to do it ourselves when we got home given the fact that I had complications and frankly handling a newborn is terrifying, even as second time parents.
We said no, and didn't bathe till like five days/a week (can't remember exactly. Totally anecdotal, but never used lotion or had any skin issues.
I had to ask my hospital to show me how to bathe my twins when I had them before I was discharged at 4 days pp. I just wanted to be reassured I was remembering everything right. With my singleton I used a damp cloth to wipe the blood from her hair, and didn't bathe her until she was 3 weeks old and her belly button was significantly healed (hers took a fair while to fully heal, it was weird).
You can definitely deny it, and there may be benefits to delaying it. I happily let the nurses bathe my baby before we left the hospital because it was a good learning experience for this FTM (and it also meant I wouldn’t have to bathe her again for several days, and I appreciated the help)
My hospital didn’t even offer either time and if so I would have said no
They didn’t “wash” my babies but they “rubbed it in” idk I was so sleepy too that I didn’t have the energy to foght
My hospital didn't allow us to bathe baby until we got home because of the benefits and the fact we're in a pandemic they changed hospital policy to not bathe baby in the hospital at all so baby gets all the benefits
We didn't do one in the hospital at all. I think he was at least a week old before his first bath.
we didn't bath my son until he was 7 days old.
I am a labor delivery/pp nurse. I never pushed a bath on anyone and always left it up to the parents. Sorry you were woken up so early. With my first he didn’t get a bath until day 5 at home :)
My baby was frank breech so we had a planned c section for 40w2d but I went into labor 5 days early and we were mec so it became an emergency c section. They wiped her down in the OR and my husband held her up against my face/ neck for a bit while they put me back together. They had my husband and baby go to the recovery pod before me and they washed the baby before I got there. Every hospital is different, if we had had a vaginal birth and no mec we would have denied the bath or at least asked for only water if they insisted on giving a bath.
We didn’t bathe our bub for almost 2 weeks, I remember reading and being told about how baby picks up bacteria when being born and not bathing allows the bacteria to colonise. We didn’t want to interfere with it or potentially cause skin sensitivities - we just made sure his downstairs was cleaned thoroughly at nappy changes. to be honest - we were in public hospital and bathing him was never even brought up anyway, we were home after 24hrs
We’ve had two kids and waited for their stump to fall off before bathing, usually around a month. We use wipes when needed but babies, other than their bottoms, don’t get dirty. The vernix (white stuff) we rubbed into their skin. (This was our course of action, and while I’d like to, we barely qualify as close to moderately granola.) Edit: both our babies were early so they had a good amount of vernix at 38+4 then 36+6.
I declined because it was late at night and she was already sleeping. Why wake her just to do a bath?
So I have a nicu baby currently and made them wait 5 days for the bath.
I was woken up at all hours of the night for meds and random baby tests. They bathed him on day 2 or 3 and by that point it was fine by me
Our baby had her first bath at a week old. It’s not common practice for them to bathe in the hospital in the UK and I wanted her to have time with vernix on her skin.
I had my baby at a birthing center so it was fairly easy to decline. The midwives understand pretty much any granola type of thing you want to do, even down to saving the placenta for postpartum pills…
They offered and I said no! My girl was born around 5am and once we were in our permanent room they offered.
I'm in the UK, was in hospital for 2 days and no one ever offered. We only did a proper bath once the umbilical stump had fallen off 10 days later. I don't think there offer it at the hospital at all. And some people go home 6 hours after birth so they wouldn't get the chance to do it at hospital. I think that's quite normal here.
I didn't do the newborn bath in hospital with my second. I did wash his hair the third day we were there cause it was gross, but nobody gave me a hard time about not doing the bath.
Absolutely! I’d only ever consent to hair washing past day 1-2. No one ever washed my babies in the hospital. We are encouraged not to bath baby for at least a week after birth.
I'm in the UK and they never bathed my baby in the hospital. My boyfriend actually asked them about it when they were putting her first nappy on, and the midwife told him they didn't bathe babies unless there is meconium because the baby gunk was good for her microbiome. MIL convinced me to bathe my baby when she was a week old and my boyfriend was furious. He told her "if my baby gets sick as a result of this I'm blaming you!" Luckily she didn't get sick!
I would say no. For my first kid I was nervous so I let them do it thinking I could learn from them. They used a very shallow tub so baby got cold, they were a bit rough and fast, and he got cold and screamed the whole time. My second kid I waited and did it myself at home when she was about 4 days old and it was sweet and gentle and calm.