How can surgical site infections be prevented?

Prevention starts before the operation, and one piece of it involves a razor.

The direct answer

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention names one avoidable step. Shaving with a razor can irritate your skin and make it easier to develop an infection.

What to do with that

Shaving is a call for the surgeon's office, so ask what it wants from you before the day. For the wider background, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps a surgical site infection basics page.

What would change the answer

The change that alters this answer is a new instruction from your surgeon's office. Instructions given for your own operation outrank general guidance, so write them down and keep them with your recovery plans.

The question that usually follows

After skin comes sedation: what you will be given, and what it feels like. The MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia has a page on conscious sedation for surgical procedures to read before that conversation.