TheHolisticParent.ORG Newborn Procedures

Newborn Procedures

Once your little baby comes out, it’s almost like a rush to get in all the things a
baby “needs” done. Many families aren’t aware they can and should refuse
certain procedures. In this section, each procedure will be discussed in efforts
to provide parents with accurate information to base their decisions.

Maternal/Fetal Separation

I’m starting with this topic because I feel it is one of the most important. I’m also
very opinionated when it comes to this. Many hospitals have a routine of taking
the infant to a warmer in the mother’s room immediately following birth for
routine procedures such as suctioning the infant’s nose and mouth, vital signs,
weight and measurements, cleaning, and warming up the baby’s temperature.
Many times this happens before the mother gets to hold her baby or after the
mother has held the baby for only a short time.
Then many hospitals also have a routine of taking the infant from the mother’s
room to the nursery around an hour or two after birth for other routine
procedures such as vitamin K injections, antibiotic eye ointment, and a bath.
There are some hospitals that do all this from the room, but many parents still
don’t feel they have a right to participate in these activities.

I believe there are only two reasons a brand new baby should be separated
from its mother. One is in the event of the need for resuscitation or NICU
admission, and the other is if the mother has a psychiatric illness in which she
is threatening to hurt her baby, and there is reason to believe she may make
good on the threat.

A healthy baby does not need to routinely be separated from its mother. Think
about it. The baby lives in your belly for the entire start of its life. It is protected,
nourished, and given life from the inside of your body. Once the baby is born, it
is still extremely vulnerable. It needs to transition to this new life slowly and
calmly. You had complete authority over your baby when it was inside of your
body and that shouldn’t change the instant the baby is born. Anything that needs
to be done can take place in the mother’s arms, and that’s only if the family
agrees to have anything done in the first place. The most important thing is for
the baby to be with its mom for bonding and security.
Make sure you choose a hospital, if that's where you choose to give birth, that
will allow 24 hour rooming in. No one should have the authority to remove your
baby from you without drastically significant reasoning. You will want to be
around your baby at all times to control that type of environment your baby is in
and what happens to your baby.

Vital Signs

Many times vital signs are taken on the infant shortly following birth and then
every half hour for two hours and then periodically following that. Surely the baby
does need to be assessed following birth to make sure the baby is able to
transition to living outside the womb. This does not mean, however, that the
exact number of heart beats need to be counted or breaths the baby takes. You
can tell how the baby is doing just by looking at his/her color. If the baby’s heart
is beating and he's breathing, the baby’s color will pink up. Babies can live
without hospital personnel knowing the exact numbers. If there is a question
about how the baby is doing, vital signs are one of the less invasive procedures
and should be done right from the mother’s arms. Otherwise, they can safely be
skipped.

Suctioning the Baby

Immediately following birth, the baby usually has a bulb syringe jammed into its
nose and mouth to remove excess amniotic fluid. Sometimes a small tube
system called a DeLee is shoved down the baby’ s esophagus into its stomach
to remove excess fluid. Many times both of these practices are unnecessary.
Babies do feel the DeLee tube. It makes them gage, choke, cough, and cry.
Suctioning makes many babies furious, and their cries will prove it to you. Most
babies can clear the fluid on their own.

Vigorous Drying and Stimulating

There is a fallacy out there that babies need to be dried off as quickly as
possible after birth. Nurses will take scratchy towels on the baby’s sensitive
skin and rub to dry the baby and stimulate the baby to cry so it will be able to
clear its lungs. This is ridiculous. Putting the baby gently against its mother’s
bare flesh and then lightly covering them with some towels or a blanket is all
that is needed. Babies left alone to be with their mother are amazingly quiet and
calm after birth. They do not have to cry to clear their lungs of any fluid. If
suctioning is needed, it should be done tenderly and gently.

Bathing

Who would have thought bathing the baby would be considered controversial ?
Obviously, the baby will eventually have to be bathed, but this does not need to
happen right away. It can be delayed for even a few days, and then done by the
parents. The baby has a creamy white substance on its skin at birth called
vernix. It can be used as a great moisturizer for the baby’s skin and should be
left on. Contrary to how hospital personnel act, this does not make the baby dirty.

A baby’s first bath can be very special. Some parents perform important ritual
baths for the baby such as the Leboyer bath. Prolong this procedure until you
are capable of participating. It does not need to be rushed through. Bathing the
baby right away can also unnecessarily lower the baby’s body temperature (the
best way to remedy this is skin to skin contact, not the infant warmer). You may
also wish to control what your baby is washed with. Many soaps (undoubtedly
the kind used by the hospital) have many toxic chemicals not fit to be put on the
infant’s skin. The water the baby is washed with is also a consideration.

Antibiotic Eye Ointment

Eye ointment is routinely put into the baby’s eyes following birth to protect
against gonorrhea. If the mother has gonorrhea and the baby gets the infection
in its eyes, it can cause blindness. Silver nitrate used to be used, but was
notorious for creating other complications. Therefore, antibiotic ointment
(Erythromycin) has now replaced the silver nitrate. Most often mothers are
tested for gonorrhea during pregnancy, but even if the tests came back negative,
the baby still receives the ointment. The ointment can interfere with
mother/infant bonding because it clouds the infant’s vision. It can cause
discomfort for the baby as well as blocked tear ducts throughout infancy.
Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease, so if you are in a committed
relationship testing is not always even necessary. This is something that can
be safely refused. If you do feel more comfortable giving the ointment to your
baby due to your personal circumstances, it is perfectly safe and as effective to
delay this procedure for up to two hours following birth to give ample bonding
time between the mother and baby.

Blood Glucose Checks

Blood glucose checks where the baby receives a heel stick prick sometime
after birth usually about an hour following once the baby has eaten. It is used to
check the baby’s blood sugar level to make sure it is high enough. This may be
indicated if the mother has diabetes, but routinely it is not necessary if the baby
is not exhibiting any signs of low blood sugar levels. One great way to make
sure the baby doesn’t have low blood sugar; let the baby nurse as long as
he/she wants. If the baby does get low blood sugar, putting the baby to the
breast is the best way to take care of it. Be careful though because it is routine
in many hospitals to give the infant a bottle of sugar water if the blood sugar is
checked, and it is too low. This can lead to nipple confusion, so be sure to
make specifications for no bottle feeding in your birth plan.

Hepatitis B Vaccine

This vaccine is typically administered before the baby leaves the hospital. It can
also be administered at the pediatrician’s office. I do not support any
vaccinations whatsoever period, but this is my personal viewpoint. This vaccine
as well as many others are covered in detail in the vaccination section. Let me
just say this. Infants are not in a high risk group for this particular infection
unless their mother is known to have this infection. Birth nor simply being in the
hospital are indications for this vaccine, so ask yourself; Why is there such a
push to give babies this vaccine in the first few days of their life when their
immune system is at one of its most vulnerable points it may ever be in? Our
vaccination section offers some interesting reading.

One small side note is that hospitals have recently started administering a
tetanus/diphtheria booster to the mother before she leaves the hospital. This is
also covered in the vaccine section, but of course, you already know where I
stand. The main point: you don’t need it!

PKU Screening

This test can pick up if your child has a very rare but potentially fatal condition
called phenylketonuria. This is where the person afflicted cannot break down
the amino acid phenylalanine. If caught early, changes made in the diet can
prevent problems. The test also tests for many other rare but serious
conditions. It is a heel stick where the baby is pricked, and some blood is taken.
Not always the most pleasant experience for the baby, but there really aren’t
many other risks associated with this procedure. It is fairly simple. Though the
conditions are rare, so if you don’t test, you’re baby will more than likely be fine,
but it is still an okay idea to do. There is some controversy surrounding this test,
and the validity of the diet prescribed for those testing positive is also in
question. There are a lot of false positives with this test, so if you get a positive,
repeating may be necessary.

If you do get a PKU test however, it will not be effective until the baby has had at
least 24 hours of breast milk in its system. Milk does not come in right away, so
a good time to have the test done for it to be accurate is one week following
birth. Therefore, if the test is performed in the hospital, it is likely not going to be
accurate.

Vitamin K Administration

This could seem like a relatively benign procedure, but it does have some
considerations. There is an injection form that is a shot for the baby, which is
not pleasant for the baby. There is also an oral form, which is much more
pleasant, but does not always work as effectively. This is not the main deciding
factor, however. Vitamin K shots are administered routinely because of a very
rare condition called hemorrhagic disease of the newborn where the blood
does not clot properly. Vitamin K is a main factor in the body’s clotting ability.
The baby’s body does not start making its own vitamin K until a few days after
birth, and breast milk is relatively low in vitamin K. Therefore, many believe
vitamin K administration is needed. I believe that the body is made perfectly,
and it rarely needs help or intervention. If that is the way nature intended these
circumstances to be, it must be for a reason.

Vitamin K is a fat soluble vitamin, which means it is possible to get too much of
it. There is seemingly a link between too much vitamin K and childhood
leukemia. The amount of vitamin K injected is 20,000 times higher than the
normal level of newborns. The vitamin K (as with all vitamin supplements) that
is given in the injection is synthetic man made vitamin K, which is different than
the naturally occurring kind, and is harder for the body to absorb and use. If the
infant’s cord is not clamped too early, the baby will receive all the vitamin K it
needs from the cord blood. It is perfectly acceptable to skip the injection if the
baby got its cord blood.

Some things to watch out for are jaundice other than what is normal for a
newborn and very easy bleeding. There are also some conditions that make
low levels of vitamin K more likely. These are maternal drug use, poor diet, anti-
epileptic medications taken by the mother, babies born via C section, or
premature babies. These circumstances may indicate further testing or
possibly warrant getting the injection.

Weighing, Measuring, and Routine Physical

All of these things are actually important procedures to perform, and there are
no risks. It is important to know a baby’s birth weight, length, and head
circumference to make sure the infant maintains adequate growth during its
infancy. It is also something many new parents look forward to knowing.
Routine physicals are performed on babies in the first few days postpartum.
The baby does not have to be separated from its mother for this, nor is it too
unpleasant for the newborn if done in a caring, gentle way. It is fairly simple, and
the point would be to look for and be aware of anything out of the ordinary. All
these things are beneficial to have done. Just make sure they are delayed for
proper bonding time following birth. They do not need to be done immediately.

Circumcision

The big decision. Trends seem to go up and down, but lately rates of
circumcision have been dropping. It is now considered a cosmetic procedure.
Insurances are no longer paying for the procedure in many circumstances. The
American Academy of Pediatrics no longer recommends circumcision. It is
customary in some religions. Usually, a family bases their decision on whether
or not the father is circumcised. It seems parents who fully educate themselves
regarding circumcision typically choose to refuse circumcision even if the father
or previous male children have been circumcised.
To start, let’s dispel the myth that babies do not feel the procedure or it is “not
that bad”. The penis is a sensitive organ even in the infant, and there is no
doubt by the infant’s screaming cries that he feels the procedure. By no stretch
of the imagination is it a pleasant experience for the baby. The new babe is
separated from his mother, strapped down to a specialized board almost like a
straight jacket, and has a significant part of his most private, sensitive organ cut
off. This is a violation of his most private area without his consent. How much
this psychologically affects the baby later in life is at present unknown. The baby
receives no anesthesia or pain medication for this procedure. The baby is given
a dose of sugar water to decrease the pain. Not even the sugar itself is benign
considering as little as 6 teaspoons of sugar can decrease an adult’s immune
system functioning by 25%. Imagine what it does to an infant.

Many parents always assumed their boys would be circumcised, and it wasn’t
up for discussion. However, when families begin to become more holistically
minded, they begin to question all common beliefs. One way to determine if you
could handle circumcising your son is to watch a video of the procedure being
performed. If you can’t stand to watch it and can’t stand to hold your son or at
least be with him when it happens, then it is probably not something that needs
to be done. Mothering instincts are very strong (they kick in even stronger when
you’ve had an empowering birth and ample time to bond with your baby) and if
you listen to them, they will not lead you astray. It is easier in the hospital to
simply have your baby go to the nursery and not think about what is actually
being done. This is not so easy to do at home. A baby boy is born perfect the
way he is. If the foreskin was intended to not be there, then it wouldn’t be. Man is
rarely able to improve upon nature. Basically, it should be a man’s decision to
decide what he prefers and wants done. Obviously, a baby cannot decide, but if
he ever wants it performed, he can always choose to later in life.

The Holistic Parent.ORG

Empowering Parents to Make Holistic Choices For The Benefit of Their Children

Calling All
Birth Stories!
Click Here
To Submit
Yours!

Visit our
Book Review
Blog
Click Here

Download
our FREE
GIFT! The
best money
saving tool
ever.
CLICK HERE