By Doula Maddie McMahon , translated into Danish by Christine Clausen
The habit of immediately putting a hat on the newborn child is strongly ingrained in our culture.
Search online for pictures of newborns and almost all of them are wearing hats as if they are heading straight for a snowball fight. So why do we do it? And why do so many midwives and doctors insist that babies' heads be covered the moment they emerge from the womb's cloth-free embrace?
The answer I get mainly from midwives when I ask is that babies lose a lot of heat from their heads and can get cold. This answer confuses me. I wonder why on earth evolution would have created such a flawed system for our species. So I did a little research. It turns out that in the 1970s a myth arose that led us all to believe that humans lose most of their heat from their heads. Apparently, this myth has its origins in a 1950s military experiment in which researchers measured heat loss in soldiers in snowy conditions. Because the only part of their bodies that wasn't covered were their heads, it's not surprising that the researchers found that the majority of heat loss came from the soldiers' heads. However, if they had worn no pants instead, logically it would have told us that they would have lost their body heat through their nether regions... heads are not special radiators of heat!
And yes, this old research has been debunked many times since then. And yet we stubbornly cling to this old saying when it comes to newborn babies. But why does it matter, you might ask? Well, I'll pass the floor here to Birthkeeper and maternity campaigner, Kemi Johnson:
"When we put a cap on the baby right after birth, we sabotage the oxytocin flow for the mother because she can't smell the wet scalp and smell it... the oxytocin that causes contractions in the uterus, thus preventing bleeding."
A person who has just given birth is in a parallel dimension. Birth is a foreign land; in the minutes after birth she must travel back to "this now" and "this place" and re-enter her own body. Parents need to anchor themselves in the "here and now" after their epic journey, by touching, smelling and kissing the newborn child. Parents who don't feel watching will naturally lower their faces to the head that only moments before stretched their perineum and heart wide open, and inhale the scent of their baby. Look carefully and you will notice that it induces uterine contractions.
Having witnessed many, many births in the last twenty years, I can really relate to this. The ritual dressing of the baby with a hat is all too often the first step that interferes with a physiological birth of the placenta. Instead of staying safe in their golden bubble of oxytocin right after birth, the midwife asks the parents if they have a hat for the baby, or grabs one knitted by a stranger and breaks in to cover the fragile little scalp . Sometimes there is fuss and noise when people look for hats in bags. The caps usually slip off the moment they are put on, so there is repeated fussing with the baby. It wakes the mother up and pulls her out of her dreamlike oxytocin high, which all too often leads to problems delivering the placenta.
Just a reminder: A newborn's temperature is regulated by skin-to-skin contact. The mother's or birth parent's breast is nature's incubator; if the baby is too cold, the blood will flow to the mother's chest to warm the baby. The birthing environment is almost always warm, and if it is not, measures can be taken to warm both mother and baby. Skin to skin also regulates the baby's heart rate and breathing and increases the chances of a good start to breastfeeding.
As Carla Hartley, birth activist, says: "No hats, no pats (in the seagull, ed.), no talk" in the fragile hours after birth. In other words, if all is well, leave the new family alone and give them peace and space to welcome their newborn.
Jacqui Tomkins is an independent midwife who is as passionate about this fragile moment as I am. Here she is in the process of passing on a fascinating fact about the chemical cocktail that a good smell of the little scalp will provide:
"Researchers have discovered an odorless scent molecule called hexadecanal or HEX that is released by humans and affects aggressive behavior. The HEX molecule is the most abundant molecule released on the head of newborns. The researchers found that this molecule reduced aggression in males (biologically important, as infanticide is a relatively common occurrence in the animal world) and increased aggression in females (important for protection of offspring)."
Source: Eva Mishor et al., Sniffing the human body volatile hexadecanal blocks aggression in men but triggers aggression in women, Science Advances (2021). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abg1530
How cool is that, huh? How often do we have to remind ourselves that we are the culmination of millions of years of natural selection? Mother Nature has really designed a pretty amazing system if we can just stop messing with it for a little while! As Dr. Sarah Buckley says:
"The mother's body heat is sufficient to keep all mammalian babies warm through skin-to-skin contact!"
I will add another domino effect of the hat habit here - the confusion it creates in parents. One minute you're in a maternity ward hotter than the surface of the sun, and now you're being ordered to put a hat on your newborn, who is also being wrapped in blankets like a burrito. The next moment you're at home being told by a nurse or midwife that you should never put a hat on a baby indoors and you're scared to death of potentially overheating the baby. This kind of counterintuitive advice undermines parents' confidence in their own abilities and is likely to erode their trust in health professionals.
But back to hexadecanal – I'll leave you with this thought: One definition of hex is "to cast a spell or enchant". The baby literally enchants his parents! Another meaning of hex is to curse, and I think the hat habit is just that – a curse on the precious moments after birth.
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By Doula Maddie McMahon, translated into Danish by Christine Clausen
You can read more from Maddie McMahon here:
thebirthhub.co.uk - Resources for parents
developingdoulas.co.uk - Courses for doulas
