The hospital bag

The hospital bag is the first luggage of your life as a parent and, usually, the worst packed: too big, with things “just in case”, and with the documents at the bottom. It doesn’t have to be like that. You’ll be in hospital for a few days, in a ward with a small wardrobe, and anything that’s missing can be brought from home by someone.

First, the hospital’s list

Every maternity hospital has its own rules. Some provide everything for the baby – nappies, clothes, a blanket – and ask you to bring nothing. Others ask you to come with everything, down to the wipes. Some allow a birth partner, others don’t, and that changes what goes in the bag.

That’s why the first step is to ask for your hospital’s list, from the doctor who follows your pregnancy or directly from the hospital. The list below is what appears on almost all of them; where the hospital’s list says something different, the hospital is right.

Three bags, not a suitcase

The advice that helps most isn’t about what you pack, but how you divide it. Instead of one bag you rummage through, make three separate, labelled packs:

1. For labour and birth – the one you walk in with.
2. For the days after – it can stay in the car or be brought the next day.
3. For going home – it stays at home, ready, and arrives on the last day, together with the car seat.

That way, whoever is with you finds what you ask for without turning everything upside down, and you aren’t carrying around the hospital clothes you only need when you leave.

Bag 1: documents and labour

The documents, in a plastic sleeve, on top of everything:

• your identity document;
• the medical file of the pregnancy: tests, scans, blood group, medical letters;
• the documents required by the maternity hospital and by the health insurance house.

For you:

• a nightdress or a long T-shirt that opens at the front and that you don’t mind ruining;
• slippers that can be washed;
• socks – delivery rooms are often chilly;
• lip balm and a hair tie;
• a bottle of water with a sports cap or a straw, which you can drink from lying down;
• a phone charger with a long cable. The socket is never next to the bed.

If the hospital allows a birth partner, pack a snack, water and a change of T-shirt for them too. Labour can be long.

Bag 2: the days after

For you:

• 2–3 nightdresses that open at the front, or pyjamas with buttons;
• postpartum pads and disposable or mesh knickers – more than you think;
• 2 nursing bras, breast pads and a nipple cream;
• shower slippers, a towel, a wash bag with products without strong perfume;
• a dressing gown or a long cardigan, for walks along the corridor;
• your glasses, if you wear contact lenses – you won’t feel like wearing them.

For the baby, only if the maternity hospital asks for them:

• 3 bodysuits and 3 sleepsuits, size 56 (and one in 50 or 62, if the scans showed a small or large baby);
• a thin hat and two pairs of socks;
• a pack of size 1 nappies and fragrance-free wipes or cotton wool;
• 2–3 muslin squares.

Ask in advance whether the hospital has its own rules about bottles, dummies or formula. Most of the time you don’t need to bring any of those.

Bag 3: going home

• For the baby: a bodysuit, a sleepsuit, a hat and, in the cold season, a blanket. Not a thick snowsuit: in the car seat, the harness is tightened over thin clothes, and the blanket goes on top.
• For you: comfortable clothes, in the size you wore in the sixth month of pregnancy, not the one from before.
• The car seat, already fitted and tried. If you’ve never strapped a baby into a harness, practise at home with a soft toy. Details in the guide to the car seat.

Going-home outfits with frills, bows and thick blankets look good in photos and fit badly with harnesses. Take the photo in the ward and dress the baby for the journey afterwards.

What you leave at home

• Jewellery and valuables. Including your wedding ring, if your fingers have swollen.
• The stock of nappies and clothes. One pack is enough.
• The breast pump. If one is needed, maternity hospitals usually have one, and the staff show you how to use it.
• Books, laptop, projects. You’ll sleep when the baby sleeps, or you’ll look at them.
• The nursing pillow, if you don’t have room. A rolled-up towel does the same job for two days.
• Toys. A newborn doesn’t need them.

When to get it ready

Around week 36, earlier if your doctor has told you that you might give birth before term or if you’re expecting twins. Leave it by the door and tell whoever is with you where each of the three bags is.

Put a sheet on the fridge with what gets added at the last minute: the phone, the charger, the identity document, the glasses. They’re exactly the things you use daily and which, for that reason, can’t sit in the bag in advance.

Our recommendation

A bag the size of cabin luggage, divided into three, packed according to your hospital’s list. If you have to choose between taking something and leaving it, leave it: the only things nobody else can bring the next day are the documents and the medical file.

For what needs to be waiting for you at home when you get back, see the newborn checklist, and for the order in which things are worth buying, the pregnancy shopping calendar.