Can Stitches Get Wet? When Can I Shower or Swim?

Shower, soak, or splash: three different questions

People use "getting stitches wet" to mean three different things. A shower means clean water running over the wound for a few minutes, then patting it dry. A soak means the wound sits under water: a bath, a hot tub, a swimming pool, a lake, or the ocean. A splash is an accident, such as a wet bandage after washing your hands or getting caught in the rain.

The research answers the first question, and only partly. Randomized trials have compared letting a stitched wound get wet early with keeping it dry. No trial has set out to test soaking a stitched wound, and no one has studied accidental splashes. This page explains what the trials found, where they stop, and why your surgeon's written instructions may differ from what you read here. Those instructions come first.

What happened when trials let stitched wounds get wet early

The largest trial was run in general practices in Queensland, Australia, and published in the BMJ in 2006. It randomized 857 people having a minor skin lesion cut out and stitched. One group took the dressing off after about 12 hours and let the wound get wet during normal bathing; the other kept it dry and covered for 48 hours. Infection followed 8.4 percent of the wet group and 8.9 percent of the dry group. The trial was designed to show that early wetting was not worse by more than a set margin, and it met that test. Because the wet group also lost its dressing, the trial did not test water on its own. And those infection rates are far higher than skin-cancer surgery centers report, which says something about the setting, not about getting wet.

The trial closest to Mohs surgery was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology in 2024. At one academic center, 437 people having skin surgery were randomized to get the wound wet 6 hours after surgery or to keep it dry and covered for 48 hours. Culture-proven infection occurred in 1.8 percent of the early-wet group and 1.4 percent of the dry group, a difference that could easily be chance. The study found no difference in bleeding or bruising, and scar scores were similar. A third trial, from Taiwan, compared showering with staying dry after thyroid, lung, hernia, face, and limb surgery, with both groups waiting 48 hours: 4 of 220 showered patients and 6 of 220 kept-dry patients developed a surface infection.

A 2015 Cochrane review found only the Queensland trial, rated it at high risk of bias, and concluded the evidence was inconclusive: the range around its result (a risk ratio of 0.96, with a 95 percent confidence interval from 0.62 to 1.48) could not rule out either more or fewer infections with early wetting. A 2020 meta-analysis pooled seven randomized trials of early showering, 1,881 patients across many kinds of surgery, and found no difference in infection. A 2013 review of nine studies and 2,150 patients reached the same conclusion. These reviews re-analyze largely the same trials, so they are one body of evidence, not several. The idea is not new: in 1988 a plastic surgeon reported 100 patients told to wash their stitched wounds with soap and water twice a day from the morning after surgery, with no infections, though that series had no comparison group.

Why the answer is still not a simple yes

Not worse by more than a margin is not the same as identical. The two skin-surgery trials counted only a handful of infections in each group, so they could not detect a small difference. The Cochrane authors also pointed out a possible downside of early washing: irritating or macerating the wound, meaning the skin goes white and soft from too much moisture.

The trials also studied mostly simple stitched closures. Skin grafts, which are often held in place by a tie-over dressing called a bolster, wounds left open to heal on their own, wounds with a drain, and many flap repairs were not the test population. A surgeon who asks you to keep one of those wounds dry for longer is not ignoring the research. The research does not cover that wound.

Soaking: baths, hot tubs, pools, lakes, and the ocean

A PubMed search for this article (October 2026) found no study of swimming, hot tubs, lakes, or the ocean with stitches, and no trial designed to test soaking a stitched wound. The advice on public health pages reflects that gap. Australia's healthdirect, for example, says that after 48 hours you can wet the area gently and briefly, for example in a sink or shower, and that you should not soak in a bath or swim until the stitches are removed or have dissolved. Many surgeons give similar advice. The literature is silent on swimming, so the answer for your wound comes from your surgeon, not from a study.

The reasons are practical rather than proven. Soaking keeps the wound under water for a long time and softens the skin around the stitches. Hot tubs and whirlpools are a known home for the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which has caused outbreaks of folliculitis (infected hair follicles) and ear infections traced to hot tubs, pools, and water slides. That is environmental microbiology, not a wound study: the same bacterium also lives in faucets and showerheads, and no study has measured what it does to a stitched wound. It explains why surgeons treat a hot tub differently from a shower. It does not set a safe date.

Stitches coming out is not an automatic green light either. Some sutures are buried under the skin and dissolve slowly, and a wound whose surface has sealed is still weak for weeks. Ask the surgeon who treated you when your wound is ready to go under water, and whether a pool, a lake, and the ocean count the same.

Why instructions vary: how and where the wound was closed

Infection after skin surgery is uncommon, but it is not evenly spread. In a prospective study of 5,091 skin lesions treated without preventive antibiotics, infection followed 0.54 percent of simple excisions, 2.94 percent of flap repairs, and 8.70 percent of skin grafts. By location, 0.81 percent of face wounds became infected, compared with 6.92 percent of wounds below the knee. A 2022 meta-analysis of 33,086 skin-surgery wounds found the trunk had the lowest infection rate and the lips had a significantly higher one, with the lower legs, and probably the ears and hands, also running higher. In a study of 1,000 Mohs surgery patients, infection followed 0.91 percent of the 1,204 tumors treated, about 1 in 100.

These numbers show where infection is more common. They do not show that water causes it, and no trial tested wetting a leg wound or a graft separately. They do explain why instructions differ. A surgeon closing a lower-leg wound, placing a graft with a bolster, or protecting a flap with a pressure dressing may ask for a longer dry period than a surgeon closing a simple line on the cheek. Dressings matter too: a bolster must stay dry, adhesive strips lift when wet, and a bulky pressure dressing that gets soaked needs changing. Two surgeons can give different instructions for similar wounds and both be reasonable. Yours were written for your wound.

After 24 hours, 4 days, a week: what a day count can and cannot tell you

The trials wet wounds at 6 hours, at about 12 hours, and at 48 hours. The 48-hour figure that appears on many instruction sheets and public guidance pages matches the period over which the skin surface usually closes: a Cochrane review of surgical dressings describes a dressing's job as protecting the wound until the continuity of the skin is restored, within about 48 hours. That is background biology, not a trial result, and a sealed surface is not a strong wound. The stitches are still doing the work.

No trial compared day 4 with day 7, or day 7 with day 14. If your surgeon told you a brief shower was fine after a set number of days, that is the answer for your wound. By four days or a week, the question most people are really asking is about soaking, and that is covered above: wait for the surgeon's go-ahead.

If your surgeon says a shower is fine: what the trials and guidance pages describe

This is a description of what the trials and public guidance pages say, not instructions for your wound. In the trials, the wound was allowed to get wet; it was not scrubbed. Healthdirect describes wetting the area gently and briefly and patting the stitches dry right away. The American Academy of Dermatology's wound-care page describes gently washing with mild soap and water, then keeping the wound moist with petroleum jelly. Whether to use an ointment, and which one, depends on your surgeon; our article Can You Put Neosporin on Stitches? explains why plain petrolatum is usually preferred.

A dressing that gets wet is not meant to stay wet. Guidance pages describe replacing it with a clean, dry one. If the wet dressing is a bolster, a pressure dressing, or something you were told not to touch, that is a call to the office rather than a do-it-yourself change.

When to call the surgeon who treated you

Most stitched wounds heal without trouble. Call the surgeon who treated you if you notice any of the following:

• Redness that spreads beyond the edge of the wound
• Pain that gets worse instead of easing
• Pus or cloudy drainage
• Fever
• A wound that opens up
• A bolster or pressure dressing that has been soaked through or has come loose