hi everyone we are the doctors bjorkman a physician couple going through pregnancy
ourselves for the very first time sharing with you all our medical expertise and our
real life experiences along the way this week we are going to cover a question i had myself
so stay tuned as we find out together everything that your pediatrician wants you to know when you
are taking home baby for the first time yeah and in case you've never met us before i'm kurt i'm
a pediatrician i'm sarah i'm an ob gyn and i am 25 weeks pregnant and we are the doctors bjorkman
so this week we were sitting having dinner and i kind of realized how little i really know about
what you need to know about bringing home a new baby i just deliver them and i said to kurt i said
you know do they even have diapers at the hospital for the baby or do you need to take them like what
do we need to be doing and so with that this week we're going to dive into all the things that i as
a board certified pediatrician want parents to know about taking home and caring for a brand
new baby so the first thing parents need to know is that babies eat a lot you can expect your baby
to be eating at least eight to 12 times a day and that comes out too at least every three hours and
so in the pediatrics world we say feet we gauge feedings on from the time of the beginning of one
feed to the next and we say babies are going to feed at least every three hours usually on average
it is very normal for babies to have cluster feedings or they may feed and then
feed again and then feed again but it is safe to assume that as new parents you're going to be
very busy with baby just from a feeding standpoint and i've heard that from a lot
of my friends who have just recently had babies just that you're gonna be surprised how much
time you actually spend feeding the baby in those first few weeks it's just all day you
feed the baby yep and so one of the things that the pediatrician is gonna do at the each day
in the hospital before you go home and then at checkups when you come back a couple days later
then at a two-week visit is they're going to see how a baby's feeding by measuring their
weight but you may say hey you know i don't have a scale at home how do i know baby's getting enough
and a good way you can know babies getting enough to eat is by how much is coming out
and so with that just as much as they're eating you're going to expect that they're going to be
peeing and pooping a lot too so we like to say babies should have a wet diaper or pee at least
three times a day but oftentimes babies may pee with every feeding too and then with that too
they're going to poop a lot too and so in those first couple days that poop is going to be kind
of black tarry meconium looking stuff but over the course of the first few days it's going to thin
out it's going to go to green and then to yellow if they're breast-fed babies they're usually
looks a little seedy like there's mustard seeds in it it's not what they are it's just kind of
the texture of the digestive breast milk they're formula fed it's sometimes maybe a little thicker
but usually we say you know day one they have one poop day two they have two poops by the time
they're four days old they're having four poops a day sometimes with every feeding just the same and
i would say poor kurt on this one one of the most common questions that we kurt has gotten
from my friends um is is is my baby's poop normal and they will send me pictures of their babies
diapers full of poop or come show him at the hospital is this normal so it is very normal
to be wondering having those questions and so you can refer back to this of kind of what to expect
it to look like in those first few days it's going to change a lot yeah and you might see
all colors of things in your baby's diapers um you know the things that i like to say is
yellow is fine green is fine brown is fine black in those first couple days is fine things that
would maybe alarm me as a pediatrician or like make me look into it further would be if the
poop was white or if you thought you saw like actual blood in the poop i think another thing
that sometimes parents wonder about is just babies straining you know this is a brand new
thing for them and so you may say like babies are just look like they're straining to poop
a lot of this is just kind of their normal way of learning their bowels and as long as those
poops are soft then you don't have to worry so much about constipation as babies get a little
older they may start to poop once a day or every other day and as long as they aren't having pain
with that or firm balls of poop then you know that they're in a pretty good spot with that
uh the next thing i like to talk about is sleep um and sleep is incredibly important and actually can
be a dangerous time for baby because it's the time when they are not being observed as opposed to
when they're awake and they're always in someone's arms are being watched and so the most important
thing is that baby sleeps on their back okay we say an empty crib swaddled just in one blanket
around maybe one layer of clothes um on their back to sleep and this was what you know one i wasn't
100 sure of is what about the bumpers like the really cute bumpers for the crib yeah and so we
say no bumpers no extra blankets no toys in the crib and the biggest reason for this is a young
baby who isn't able to protect their own face or roll over on their own we would hate to have
them have something in front of their face that would impede them from taking normal breaths with
that and be a potential risk for sudden infant death syndrome so we realize this may be sounds
kind of um over cautious but this is a very real risk that we know that if we have babies on their
backs to sleep in an empty crib that is the safest way for baby to sleep can i ever put the bumpers
in her crib yeah so once babies are able to roll themselves over and they're able to kind of take
care of themselves you could think about having bumpers in the crib but again the biggest thing
is for newborn infants empty crib on their backs it's just so cute but safe baby is more important
the next thing i like to talk to parents about is just caring for the umbilical cord
so you may ask gosh like there's this stump of tissue here at the bellybutton site what do i do
with it it looks nasty it looks gross there's all sorts of old practices with that the best
thing to do is to leave it alone you don't need to wipe it with alcohol you don't need to clean it
the goal is to let it dry off dry out and it usually falls off in the first week of life
you may notice a couple little drops of blood at the time um but that's about it and that should be
it after that you can start bathing the baby but before that you should just say sponge bathing to
try to keep that area dry so you said leave it alone keep it dry you don't need to do anything
but what am i looking out for that would be not good yeah so there are some rare complications
that can come up with the belly button the only reason that you i as a pediatrician would want to
hear from you about it is if you thought it was really red or angry looking or looked swollen
around the bellybutton site there are some rare infections that can happen in this area
or even if you thought there was persistent drainage sometimes that's a little thing that
can happen that your pediatrician will be able to help you troubleshoot and take care of if it's an
issue at all does it go like above the diaper or is it in the diaper does it matter if it touches
the diaper um i usually say if you can keep the belly button exposed it just helps to dry out
and fall off and do its normal process a little bit faster rather than keeping it covered
where it might stay moist and get kind of goopy and gross okay
that which we just too talking about things in the diaper area so lots of questions about
boy parts girl parts for young babies so for little girls especially it's very normal for
them to have some sort of vaginal discharge white discharge is normal you may even see some bleeding
in the first couple days and this a lot of this is just a response to mom's hormones
as that young baby girl is now transitioning to the world outside of mom for baby boys
it's a little different it all depends on whether the boys had a circumcision or not
in terms of circumcision care one of the best things you can do is really leave it alone
and we do say to to put vaseline on it is a good way to keep that tissue protected keep it from
sticking to the diaper and to keep poop off of it these are good things to keep it both clean
and to keep it from adhering that can cause pain usually in the first five to seven days that skin
will kind of transform and heal and then no longer be an issue for babies who aren't circumcised get
questions about this all the time it is best to leave the foreskin alone you don't need to retract
it or anything that is something that will happen over the first couple years of the baby's life
and so if baby's not circumcised you can definitely clean the penis but don't try to
expose the head of the penis at all and that can do more harm than good for young babies
uh let's see what's next car seats are incredibly important um as something that you must have to
bring baby home from the hospital it's one of the few things that you have to have for you to
be able to walk out of the hospital with your baby yeah to answer sarah's question that she had at
the dinner table earlier this week you don't need diapers at the hospital you don't need formula you
don't need bottles um and so the one thing you do need to bring is a car seat and then it's
also a good idea to bring an outfit for baby to go home but even if you don't they will have little
special baby shirts and swaddle wraps baby hats and baby hats at the hospital if all you brought
was the car seat you'd be okay so i just want to kind of reassure you and encourage you that if you
feel like you're a little lost or don't know a lot of these things um that's okay
i'm in ob gyn i've delivered hundreds of babies and i didn't know this stuff um i thankfully have
a pediatrician on hand who can help but there's a learning curve for everybody and there's going to
be a learning curve when we bring this little baby home and so much of this is learning as you go
um you know like what kind of bottle should you use if you have a breastfed baby like i learned
this week you're supposed to boil these suckers for five minutes before you actually use them
um so you're not alone we are here to help you um there's tons of great educational content coming
for you so just stay tuned um and so important things about a car seat is to make sure that it
is not expired um they do have a life span or after so much time they are considered
too old to be guaranteed safe for baby um and then to make sure it's secured in the car correctly
okay the biggest thing is that this car seat needs to be facing backwards for a newborn infant okay
and then make sure to look at the manual that comes with the car seat to make sure that it's
installed properly if you have questions about this at all you can always ask at the hospital
and they can come down and check your car seat to make sure that it's installed properly because
everyone wants your baby to be safe other quick pointers and tips that we're going to probably try
to talk about in a future episode is just to make sure that the shoulders are at the lowest setting
the shoulder straps um you shouldn't be able to pinch the strap they should be tight enough
to where you can't pinch and fold the straps down on themselves okay that's how you know
it baby's snug enough other good things is that baby should just be kind of in one layer
um if it's cold out blankets or snow suits should be outside of the straps of clothes yeah okay
um and the big thing there is that if babies got a lot of clothing on and then you strap them in
if they were to get an accident that clothing or that bedding or whatever can compress
and baby could potentially slip out so just kind of one layer of clothing then strap them
in if they need extra things to stay warm in the car put it over the top of their straps and keep
their little faces out and exposed got it so car seats are that one thing that maybe a hand-me-down
isn't going to work for because they expire and it's that one thing we really need to get
another question we get asked about all the time is how do you keep baby healthy
and when do i need to call a pediatrician and so the best things that you can do for a baby is to
keep everyone around them healthy okay their immune systems are still young still developing
so it's really important lots of hand washing for anyone who's going to be
around the baby holding the baby definitely in the era of covid this changes things a little bit
it doesn't mean everyone's got a mask around and so if you have people coming in to see baby and
you want to say hey could you wear a mask around baby that is okay for you as parents to ask
you know again that's something that you can weigh the benefits of we say to try to avoid
large crowds but if there's a bunch of people that want to come see baby and you want to
say hey can you please wear a mask around my baby you as parents can absolutely say that
i wouldn't say you have to say that but just something that is an extra thing that we have
in 2021 that we didn't have easily available to us pre-covert era yeah it used to be just
if you want to hold the baby you need to wash your hands but now it's kind of if you want to
hold the baby you need to wash your hands have you gotten the vaccine will you wear a mask
it's just another layer of things to think about and then the other part of that is we talk about
cocooning baby with vaccines so making sure that everyone who's going to be around the
baby is up to date with their pertussis vaccine so this is the whooping cough whooping cough
for you and me could be kind of just an annoying cough that lasts a couple weeks
for babies it could mean life or death and so this means making sure dad is up to date
making sure grandma and grandpa and anyone else who's going to be up to date has had that tdap
vaccine that p letter p and tdap is pertussis and making sure that baby is safe from that
standpoint moms get vaccinated um usually in the third trimester so they pass some immunity
on to baby and moms do that in each pregnancy everybody else in the family just needs to make
sure you are up to date which is usually five to ten years every five to ten you need a booster
and so the other part of that is like gosh when is baby sick when do i need to call and so you
absolutely 100 do not need to regularly check your baby's temperature but if you say hey you know my
baby seems off they've missed two feeds they're extra sleepy they feel really warm to me those are
good times to check baby's temperature and i would say anytime their temperature is greater than 100
degrees fahrenheit to give your pediatrician a call so it's a nice easy number to remember
and this usually glass for the first two months of life where we're extra cautious with young babies
and fevers just as their immune system is still developing the best way and most accurate place
to check a baby's temperature is actually rectally um if you are for whatever reason uncomfortable
with that that's okay um the second best place that we like to recommend is under the arm
okay yes okay another good reason to call the pediatrician would be if um babies wet diapers
have really dropped off so again we said they should have at least three wet diapers a day
peeing at least three times a day if they're having less than that that would be a sign
that hey maybe they're not getting enough to eat they're dehydrated something else might
be going on so it's another nice rule of thumb to keep in mind for that okay
the final thing that i like to talk to all new families about new parents is just about kind of
mental well-being you guys are going to take home a new human being mom has just given birth and
done an amazing thing but it's really hard it's really hard physically challenging and exhausting
and this newborn period can be really tough and so a couple of things is it is normal to feel like
your mood is a little off um but if there are big changes if you say gosh i'm having trouble
connecting with my baby i feel really sad i have thoughts of harming myself or baby please do not
hesitate pick up the phone call your pediatrician call your ob gyn yeah and let us know there's
definitely a difference between uh baby blues and postpartum depression and either of those
us as pediatricians or as obgyns we want to help young families young mothers get through this
and the other thing is that babies can be really demanding and they can cry for what seems like an
unending amount of time they're so needy and so if you are ever in a spot where you say gosh i
am so fed up with my baby it is okay to swaddle them up put them in their bassinet or their crib
um on their back with nothing else in it and take five minutes for yourself you can leave
baby to cry for five minutes while you go take a mental moment for you um to just regroup and
then come back and love that baby with a fresh mind and fresh spirit um and start all over
when everything else seems to be going haywire so i mean i one of my attendings talks about how
with that first new baby crying kind of losing her mind she said you know i understand how shaken
baby happens and she's a physician an ob gyn and just thought she was gonna lose it um and so it's
better to just put your baby down in a safe place walk away for five minutes take a deep breath
um and come back ready to be a mom or dad that's it for us this week guys thank you
so much for tuning in uh please let us know if you have any questions in the comments below
also know that your pediatricians your family care doctors your primary care physicians
and providers love to hear from you when you have questions write them down bring them to your
next visit with baby and we have lots of great things coming up for you to answer some of those
last questions to get ready for this baby you know breast in bottle feeding
what to expect in the hospital with that new baby what to expect and labor and delivery
for mom different things we'll talk about epidurals and pain control and c-sections and
great things coming up for you guys in the coming weeks so like you said make sure you're subscribed
so you don't miss any of it um we love having you all here thanks for joining us guys bye
we're doctors but not your doctors anything we've
said in this video is for education or entertainment purposes only it is not
medical advice any specific medical questions you have should be directed to your provider