A new father from Spanish Fork, Utah caused a stir online after he posted a photo of a charge on his hospital bill with the caption “I had to pay $39.35 to hold my baby after he was born,” a charge the hospital has since clarified covers the cost of an additional nurse in the operating room suite.

Ryan Grassley uploaded the photo showing the “skin to skin” fee to the online community Reddit on Oct. 3. Since then, the post has received 6,201 upvotes and 11,663 comments. Many commenters speculated about what the charge could be for and why it would appear on the bill for Grassley’s wife’s C-section surgery. Grassley and his wife had a laugh about the charge, he told CTVNews.ca in an email Tuesday afternoon, adding that he didn’t call the hospital for more information about his bill.

But in an email to CTVNews.ca on Tuesday evening, Utah Valley Hospital spokesperson Janet Frank clarified that the $39 charge was for an extra supervising nurse in the operating room and not for Grassley to hold his son up to his wife’s neck and chest during the skin-to-skin contact process.

“In the case of a C-section, where the bedside caregiver is occupied caring for the mother during surgery, an additional nurse is brought into the OR to allow the infant to remain in the OR suite with the mother,” Frank wrote. “The charge is not for holding the baby, but for the additional caregiver needed to maintain the highest levels of patient safety.”

She also said the hospital is an advocate for skin-to-skin contact after both vaginal and C-section births.

Skin-to-skin contact, or Kangaroo Care as it’s often called, is when parents holds their newborn’s bare chest against their own bare chest after birth The process is supposed to help babies adjust to being outside the womb, create a bond between the parent and their child as well as offer a number of other health benefits for the baby.

Suzanne Smith, a midwife and owner of the Better Birth clinic in Utah, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview from Spanish Fork, Utah on Tuesday morning that she had never heard of a hospital bill itemizing skin-to-skin contact before. Smith has no involvement with this particular family but found it strange that a hospital would include that on a bill.

“I find it really hard to believe that they (the hospital) would put that on a bill in such a way,” Smith said. “Now that it’s gone public are people not going to hold their baby because they’re afraid they’re going to be charged?”

Smith said there are other rules in the hospitals she visits, such as parents being required to carry their babies in bassinettes rather than in their arms when they’re travelling in the halls between rooms.

“I could imagine a good reason for having additional personnel or having a policy that would be protective, I’m just curious about the billing,” Smith said.

In a comment on his original post, Grassley said that his overall experience at the hospital was a positive one.

“The nurse let me hold the baby on my wife’s neck/chest. Even borrowed my camera to take a few pictures for us. Everyone involved in the process was great,” he wrote. “We just got a chuckle out of seeing that on the bill.”

Grassley told CTVNews.ca in the email that he wasn’t expecting such an overwhelming response to his Reddit post.

“It all seems pretty ridiculous to me,” he said. “In the spirit of ridiculousness I created a GoFundMe for $39 to help pay for the first time we held our baby.”