I will never forget the absolutely terrifying speech the nurse gave my husband and I at the hospital where I gave birth.
Before I talk about it, let me just say that this nurse was kind, super sweet, and took great care of me. And I’m sure that this speech was extremely well-intentioned. There was no way she could have known that she was speaking with such an anxious person.
Right before we left, she went through a long checklist of the basics we would need to remember at home; things about breastfeeding, sleep, tracking diapers to make sure the baby is eating enough, etc. And then she said something to this effect: “Now, it’s important that you don’t take your baby out in public for the first 6 weeks of her life. Trust me. If you take your baby out, she may get sick, and if your baby develops a fever, you will have to take her to the Emergency Room.” Then she said the following thing with a super serious, ominous tone, at least in my memory. “You do NOT want to have to take your baby to the ER, because there are all kinds of germs at the hospital and you do NOT want to expose your baby to those.”
Immediately, I was terrified. That whole thing sounded absolutely horrifying to me.
I was a little stunned by this, and just wanted to clarify so I asked, “So, I shouldn’t take her out at all, even just to a friend’s house or somewhere like that?”
She relaxed a little, maybe because she picked up on my anxiety. “Well, I mean… you can take her somewhere like that. And it’s okay if you need to go on a quick Target run or something.”
Major confusion. I shouldn’t take her out in public but I can run to Target? This was just my first experience of how super inconsistent and confusing all the baby advice is, but that’s a topic for a different day.
Now, I had always been anxious, but I had never been germaphobic. I shared drinks with other people, visited people in the hospital, etc. but now I had this tiny, vulnerable baby who I loved more than anyone ever and I had that speech ringing in my anxious, sleep-deprived new mom brain.
The first time I took her out of the apartment was 3 weeks postpartum. I took her into a store just to pick up some diapers. Immediately, I regretted my decision. Everyone around me suddenly looked sick, I saw a child sneeze out of the corner of my eye, and I seriously thought, “Why did I bring my tiny, precious baby to this disgusting germ box? I’m a terrible mom!”
This type of anxiety continued and worsened over the coming months. Moms reading this who have experienced severe sleep deprivation know how irrational your thoughts can become when you have only slept for brief intervals over the course of weeks and months.
Over a year after my daughter’s birth, I spotted a book in the local library that has become the gift I buy for every new mom. It is called “Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts: A Healing Guide to the Secret Fears of New Mothers” by Karen Kleiman, MSW. I cannot recommend this book enough.
There are so many helpful pages, but one in particular I wish I could go back in time and show my new mom self. It says that you should follow your pediatrician’s advice about avoiding overexposure to germs, but beyond that, you should remind yourself: “Germs are unavoidable. Exposure to germs helps build strong immune systems. If my baby gets sick, we will go to the doctor and nothing terrible will happen.”
“Germs are unavoidable. Exposure to germs helps build strong immune systems. If my baby gets sick, we will go to the doctor and nothing terrible will happen.”
Karen Kleiman, MSW. “Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts: A Healing Guide to the Secret Fears of New Mothers,” 2019.
I’m posting it here for any new mom that feels the way I did. It’s okay to try to avoid overexposure to germs in ways that we can (like washing our hands for example) but our babies can still get sick because germs are unavoidable. We are not in complete control of any of it. And if your baby does get sick, you will go the doctor and it will be okay.
As an aside, of course I realize there are rare (in the U.S.) tragic cases of infant death from an illness, and I do think we can reduce our anxiety as moms by coming to some sort of spiritual acceptance of our childrens’ mortality (which is far more difficult that accepting our own mortality. I’m still working on it.) But statistically, your baby dying of illness is so so very unlikely.
My daughter is a year and a half old now, and she has been sick many times. Luckily, she has never had anything too serious, but we have taken her to the doctor, and guess what? It’s all been just fine.
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