Your baby is already born, you are tired but full of emotion and as soon as you leave you see how they deliver it directly to your uterus, full of amniotic fluid, moist and eager to be with you, as much as you are to be with him. You just want to feel it in your chest, notice that light weight and small volume on top of you, its warmth, its touch and its smell.
You want to meet him with all your senses and bring your face to his head to kiss him, and smell him, and look at him, in an image that will remain forever in your retina and a smell you will never forget ... unless before that someone has put him a hat and spoiled the moment: why the hat for newborns should be worn only for photos.
Nurse, if you don't wear clothes, why do you put on a hat?
Until a few years ago the first thing they did when they took the baby was to wash it, measure it, weigh it, do the explorations they considered important and dress it, and then deliver it to the mother ready almost for baptism. Now it is not done: the baby is born and they put it on your chest because it has been seen that It is the best for the mother and the baby. For the mother, because she knows that she is her baby, she falls in love with him and perceives him in all his essence, creating a bond of love and responsibility rather than strong, and for the baby because that way he keeps the temperature better, he spends less energy because he has less anxiety, before making his first shot and is better taken to the chest.
In this change the clothes have been removed (they do not dress it to put it to the chest), but nevertheless in many hospitals they keep the hat. As if mom's body was enough to warm the body but not the baby's head.
But why does he wear the hat?
Because before they dressed and gave it to you, which is something that was done a few years ago, they didn't even give you the baby. They took it, washed it to remove the vernix caseosa, which is a layer of greasy texture that aims to protect the skin and prevent heat loss, dressed and then put it in a crib in a nursery, a little room full of babies dressed and covered with sheets and blankets, alone, all with the purpose of not losing heat (and in the absence of their mothers, which do provide heat).
Away from them, and clean without any natural protection, they needed anything to avoid the mentioned loss of heat. Y one of the garments was the hat, which protected the head area.
But now this is no longer done: they no longer wash the baby immediately and consequently it is not cooled with water (the water is hot, but when you take it out of the water the baby is cold), nor is the vernix removed, and the baby is no longer absurdly separated from her mother, but it is left in his chest so that, not only does he not lose heat, but he also receives it.
Come on, summarizing: there is no reason to put the hat on the baby because the warmth of his mother in the first hours after birth is enough, and so the mother has total freedom to meet her baby as she is, without the barrier of a hat that only leaves her face free, when on the head they could go dozens of kisses and lots of love through the breath, the one that smells like the baby, the one that memorizes its smell forever, with its eyes closed, knowing it.
No, no, no ... that if they do it is for something
Surely more than one and one will be thinking that such nonsense, that if it is done is for something. Well, I have already explained: it is done because before they thought it made sense. And I do not say it, is that there are even studies that corroborate it. In 2008, Cochrane made a review of studies to know the measures that helped newborns maintain body color in the first 10 minutes after birth, which is when there is more risk of hypothermia.
They compared having a delivery room at a temperature of 25 ° C, drying the baby immediately after delivery, wrapping it with preheated blankets, preheating any contact surface and using radiating mattresses or incubators with other methods such as skin-to-skin contact. They saw that the only useful methods to avoid hypothermia were skin to skin contact and the use of heat transmitting mattresses. The incubator was useful in babies weighing between 1200 and 2200 grams, but not so much in the rest. At the time of reaching the caps they concluded that "knitted caps were not effective in preventing heat loss".
In other words, it is not even once, when they were left alone with other babies, the hat was useful for something when maintaining body temperature.
So, just for the picture?
No. Every father and every mother Do what you want, because in fact the fact of putting it on or putting it does not affect the baby's health at all. If I were a mother I would prefer not to wear it because that way the baby would have more kisses on the head and because I would see it as it is, and not with a hat, but if other parents consider that to smell the baby and give kisses It is not important, and prefer to wear a hat, go ahead.
For the newborn when leaving, for photos, or for whatever each couple wants. But not because it is necessary.
Photos | MissMessie, Brad Kebodeaux on Flickr
In Babies and more | When your baby is born do not wear a hat, it is no use, Incubator, skin with skin ... and special clothes to regulate the temperature of premature babies, How to practice the kangaroo method or skin with skin (video)
