Baby’s First Bling

     Last week we pierced our 6-month-old daughter’s ears. In most of the U.S. people would ask, “Why?” But in Miami the question is: “Why did you wait for so long?”

     I never pictured myself piercing my baby’s ears. I am not Latino.  I grew up in Massachusetts, where I had to wait until I was 10 to get my ears pierced at a salon. My mother didn’t pierce her ears until she was well into her 40s, having been told by my grandmother that only gypsies had pierced ears. But my daughter Amalía is half Nicaraguan. Nicaraguans pierce the ears of female infants in the hospital.  It is traditional for a baby girl’s godparents and family to give her earrings to show how adored she is. In Miami, a baby can be dressed up in pink, but if she doesn’t have earrings, people will still call her a beautiful baby boy. Was I wrong to deny my daughter something that the community around her thinks is a God-given right for a female? I wanted her to embrace Nicaraguan and Miami culture, but I was worried about what my mother would say.

    When I took Amalía in for a checkup and asked our pediatrician about infant earrings, she told me that she refused doing piercing for years, but she knew of a baby whose aunt pierced her ears in the hospital right after she was born, when nobody was looking.  Because desperate relatives were performing secret piercings in hospital rooms and risking infection, the doctor decided to make a “Miami Compromise”. She began offering “beauty visits”; no medical tests or examinations were performed, but she would pierce the baby’s ears, only if she was vaccinated and at least 3 months old, and the earrings used were one of the sterilized infant pairs her office provides.

    The doctor shot the gold studs we had picked out into our baby’s ears. Amalía cried for a minute — less than she did for the flu shot. Then she smiled as we started taking pictures.

   “She looks great,” the doctor said before leaving the room. “But I can tell you guys aren’t from Miami — everyone here goes with the fake diamonds.”


The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) suggests that parents wait until their daughter is old enough to care for the ear piercing herself because infants are at higher risk of infections and may accidentally put the tiny earrings in their mouths.  If you decide to pierce your baby’s ears, the AAP recommends that your baby gets a tetanus shot at two months, and you  wait another two weeks before piercing. Some doctors recommend waiting until all regular vaccinations are completed (15 months)

- Eleni N. Gage, New York Times