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Along With Babies, Hairstylists Are Arriving in Hospitals

Donna Yip with her newborn daughter, Caroline Rose, and in-hospital hairdo and makeup by the stylist Jackson Simmonds.


When Donna Yip, a lawyer who lives in the financial district, went into labor with her second child in June, she had more than just her husband and medical team in her room at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital.

Jackson Simmonds from the Julien Farel Restore Salon & Spa was also there, with a curling iron, hair dryer and boar bristle hairbrushes in his Longchamp tote. They were his tools to style Ms. Yip’s hair immediately after delivery.

Ms. Yip is one of a growing number of women who are booking hairstylists and makeup artists to come to their hospital room for postpartum grooming, typically with the first photographs of mother and child in mind.

“I think someone realized, ‘Why should I not look good for that great picture that I’m going to show everybody, the first picture of my child?’ ” said Joel Warren, an owner of the Warren-Tricomi salons.

Those images are frequently posted on social media like Instagram, as Ms. Yip’s was, to be seen by a broad network of friends, colleagues and close family. It is probable that the practice has been fueled by the barrage of images of women like Kate Middleton, who after delivering her children left the hospital with sleek, bouncy hair that more readily suggested a leisurely blowout than the physically taxing experience of childbirth.

“We have a lot of patients who have had a long labor, and they are like, ‘O.K., I want cool pictures of me and my baby,’ ” said Lisa Schavrien, the obstetric nurse navigator at Lenox Hill Hospital, who keeps in her mobile phone a list of hairstylists from nearby salons for the five to 10 new mothers for whom she helps arrange in-room appointments each month.

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Along with medical equipment, tools and products for hairstyling and makeup could be found in Ms. Yip’s hospital room when she delivered her daughter.

Though these treatments are far from ubiquitous (Mr. Warren’s salons have sent stylists on 10 hospital appointments with new mothers in the last couple of months), they are on the rise.

Julien Farel has had a 200 percent increase in such bookings (the salon declined to disclose the number of appointments) in the last three months. Stylebookings.com, a website offering to-go hair and makeup appointments, has been sending about five stylists a week on maternity calls. Glamsquad, the on-demand beauty app, reports an increase of 30 percent over the last six months.

“You figure you do it for other events,” said Patti Wilson, the director of photography at OK! Magazine, who plans to book a hairstylist through Stylebookings.com to come to her room at Mount Sinai Hospital when she delivers her first child later this year. “This is a moment where it’s one of those milestones. I’ll feel better if it’s blown out, and in pictures it will look better.”

Typically, stylists on maternity calls aim for low-key grooming, not a splashy fashion statement. “No one wants ‘I’m going to a black-tie event’ hair,” said Chris Lospalluto, a stylist at Sharon Dorram Color at Sally Hershberger who has had a handful of such bookings. “They just want to look fresh, just a better version of themselves. You’ve got to spruce them up because everybody’s coming to see them.”

Mr. Simmonds uses dry shampoo or spritzed water on new mothers who can’t shower or wash their hair after delivery. “It’s not like the full-on blowout you would have in a salon, for logistical reasons,” he said. “Nonetheless, it comes out looking good.” (For the record, he waited in a hallway while Ms. Yip was in labor, slipping back inside her room after her daughter Caroline Rose, or Rosie, was born.)

A hospital-room booking with a stylist from an upscale salon can be expensive: An out-of-salon call by Mr. Lospalluto costs $700; the charge for a similar booking from Julien Farel’s salon is $500. Stylebookings.com appointments start at $180 before tax and tip. Prices for Glamsquad’s services begin at $50.

For some new mothers, the treatments offer an emotional boost as well as an aesthetic one. “It’s really important that you feel good, that you don’t look in the mirror and say, ‘Oh, my God,’ because having a baby is like running a marathon,” said John Barrett, founder of the namesake salon at Bergdorf Goodman. “Just feeling ‘I look normal’ afterward is such a nice thing. It’s good for the psyche.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section D, Page 5 of the New York edition with the headline: It’s a Boy, and a Blowout. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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