Where does your hospital complete the first bath

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I am doing a project and just want to get a concensus on how long after birth and where the first bath is done. for instance in labor and deliver, nursery or post partum?

I have worked in a few different hospitals and each one did it different. One place the baby came right after delivery to the nursery for admission. We did vitals, shots, bathing, rewarming, etc. Sometimes we'd get 5-6 babies within a short period of time. Needless to say those babies didn't get out to their moms sometimes for 3-4 hours!!! I hated it ... so I quit. Another place we did newborn admissions along with our assignment of 8 babies. It was ridiculous. Again, sometimes the infant wouldn't get out of the nursery for several hours as we were tied up taking care of all the other babies we were assigned. I quit that place too.

FINALLY ... I found a hospital that does not separate baby and mom. The baby comes from L&D on moms chest and stays in the room with parents. We used to bath the baby as soon as the temp was stable but now we're waiting 6hrs. to bath a baby. Our manager says the evidence shows that the temp stabilizes better skin to skin for a longer period of time. After the six hours, if it's still on my shift, the baby gets bathed right there in the room in the sink ... immersed in water. Which is okay by the way! It's wonderfu! They cry for few seconds and then they just seem to relax and love it! They feel back at home. It's my favorite part of the job! Some people still do the sponge bathing and you hear those babies screaming the entire time!!! Not the ones that are comfy and warm. They scream when you take them out! But as soon as they're skin to skin they calm down.

I once heard, that only in the human species do we take our young and separate them at birth. All other mammals keep their young very close to them. You think as humans we would see the value of this.

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Specializes in Practice Nursing, Postnatal Nursing.

I work in a small rural hospital, primary care birhting unit only and a BFHI accredited ward. So there is NO nursery and pretty much all babies have skin-to-skin and are fed within the first 30mins-1hr. The first bath appears to be at the LMC discretion. One group do the bath after the skin-to-skin and neonatal check and another group dont bath at all until the next day.

All babies room in 24/7 (with the occaisonal break out cuddling with staff if a baby is fussing and mum is absolutely knackered!).

We also have a high breastfeeding rate with only a few choosing formula from the word go.

Our birth rate is only 184 in the last year out of nearly 300 admissions, with 46 transferred to secondary care and the rest transferred back for PN care.

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Specializes in Postpartum, LDR.

Our hospital delivers 10,000 a year. We often have 7 couplets. We bath the baby in the room for a prime, in the nursery if a multip, after 2 good temps 2 hours apart. If blood sugars are needed, we wait until those are done before bathing.

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Our hospital delivers 10,000 a year. We often have 7 couplets. We bath the baby in the room for a prime, in the nursery if a multip, after 2 good temps 2 hours apart. If blood sugars are needed, we wait until those are done before bathing.

Just curious why the difference between primip and mulips?

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Specializes in Postpartum, LDR.

We do it in the room if they need a demo, in the nursery if they don't. Some don't want the baby to keave the room, then we do it there. It's just quicker and easier to do it in the nursery. With admissions, you may be doing three baths a day. We have multiple admissions per shift.

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Specializes in OB, M/S, HH, Medical Imaging RN.
We can do the bath anytime after baby is 1 hour old and warm enough (98.0 for us). Usually for a vag. delivery baby stays with mom for till mom is ready to transfer to postpartum, and we take the baby to the nursery and do the bath when L&D is getting mom up to the bathroom, and moving her over to her new room. C-sections we usually do after the hour wait and then baby is usually nice and warm and ready by the time mom is out of recovery.

We do the bath in the LDRP anytime after the baby is warm and stable. It depends mostly on what Mom wants. If she prefers to bond and/or breastfed for several hours then the bath is postponed.

For c-sections we wait until the baby is warm and stable. The bath is done in the NBN.

In either case the baby must remain dressed and double-blanketed for a minimum of 4 hours.

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We do it in the room if they need a demo, in the nursery if they don't. Some don't want the baby to keave the room, then we do it there. It's just quicker and easier to do it in the nursery. With admissions, you may be doing three baths a day. We have multiple admissions per shift.

thanks... I was just curious as to why that would be a policy. It sounds like you are pretty sensitive to patients' wishes.

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