Should newborns be wearing those little cotton mittens everyone sells? Does it impinge on the use and development of their hands? Are they only to prevent them from scratching their face, in which case shouldn’t I just make sure their nails are filed? Mittens feel superfluous.
—Tori
I love this question because it brings back vivid memories of the first weeks with my daughter. Our pediatrician told us to have her wear mittens to avoid scratching her face. When my mother visited, though, she told me that if Penelope wore mittens too much she would never learn to use her hands. As I sit here now, writing this and listening to Penelope run through a set of minor scales on her violin, this fear seems completely insane. At the time, though, I got very exercised about it.
So I went to the data.
There are no papers supporting the view that wearing mittens causes a baby to not use their hands (sorry, Mom!). There are some reports on mitten injury (for example, this one, in which an infant wearing mittens ended up with swollen hands. Don’t worry, the injury healed in that case). Injuries seem to occur with knitted mittens, which get tangled around infant fingers. Or if the mittens are held on with elastic bands, which is not appropriate. Overall, these mitten dangers are extremely rare.
On the flip side, affirmative reasons for wearing mittens are fairly thin. Yes, babies can scratch themselves, but keeping their fingernails trimmed is another way to avoid this.
Overall, this to me is the classic example of something that doesn’t matter much either way but that can easily occupy hours of your day in the first weeks of your baby’s life. Don’t worry about it, and spend those hours sleeping instead.
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