Before you touch the newborn for examination, you have to take the infection prevention measures. This means that you have to perform a medical hand washing procedure to prevent any infection transmission from the baby. Look at the following figure below.

Figure 6.1. How to do a thorough hand wash before a postnatal assessment.

You should also teach the mother how to wash her hands and when to wash. This is before she is going to touch the baby after performing any activities.

Ask the mother to breastfeed the baby while you are washing your hands, and this will help you know about how the baby is feeding and identify weather he had a feeding problem or not and keep the baby calm while you are assessing him.