Keep your newborn home!! I know in the beginning everyone wants to show off their new little baby. You also want to get out a little. You’re feeling a little better and as my husband puts it ever so delicately, “You want to get the stink off”.
It’s hard, I know, but you need to stay home and stay down, for a minimum of two weeks. Your baby is born having only access to your germs and the germs in your home. Their immune system is still developing. If you take her out too soon she can get sick and have a difficult time fighting it off, especially if you aren’t breastfeeding. I’ve heard of so many infants getting hospitalized with various infections. I always wonder if they would have gotten it if mom would have kept a lower profile.
If you have to go out I recommend putting your baby in a Moby Wrap. Whenever someone sees a little baby they want to talk to it, touch it, look at it. Well, in my opinion, looking and even talking is fine. Touching, however, is not. Put your baby in a Moby Wrap. This keeps the baby in your bubble, so to speak. People usually won’t invade an adult’s bubble.
In all my years of wearing a baby in a sling and wrap (about the past five children) I’ve had two people touch my baby while I was wearing them. I was in Portugal with my 7th baby, Felicia, in a sling. She was only six weeks old. The Portuguese culture, being very different from ours, doesn’t have the same bubbles we have. The little (and they are little!) old women love babies. With there not being very many children around I was a magnet for the women. I had to keep my hand on her head so I could monitor their impulses to touch. They could see Felicia this way but most were unlikely to touch. There were a few times I thought the women would climb into my sling if they could!!
The other time was in a grocery store when Judith was in a Moby Wrap. This shocked me as no one had ever reached into my wrap before. Before I could say anything this elderly women stroked her head. I quickly put my hand on her head and stepped back. The woman didn’t take any offense but I think she understood.
When a baby is in a car seat in the shopping cart she is open for all kinds of strangers. There have been many times I’ve had to ‘rescue’ my baby from strangers love. This is what taught me to keep them in a wrap. It’s important to keep the germs to a minimum. None of my children have ever been hospitalized for something contagious. I hope to keep it this way!
And What About You?
Staying home is not only important for the baby but it’s also important for mom. Her body is recuperating from the birth. It has taken nine months for her body to grow her baby and now she wants to go out and play days after her baby is born. Not good.
A huge eye opener for me was when someone explained the situation to me like this. Take a look at your placenta. See the part that was connected to you, how large and red and bumpy it is? Now imagine that part connected to you. On your inside that placenta attached to your uterus and has since fallen off. It is now a big scab and needs to heal. If we had a scab of that size on the outside of our body most would be inclined to head to the hospital thinking it needed special care. It doesn’t take just a few days to heal. You may feel better but until you’ve stop bleeding you’re not fully healed. This could be one week or even six weeks.
You have healing to do and a new baby to get to know. Enjoy this time with your new pride and joy. Stay home and have some special time with them. Soon, they will have grown and you’ll wish you had them back at home snuggling up to you.
