Babies may be tiny, but the stories around them can be surprisingly strange, scientific, historical, and sometimes even dark. From newborn reflexes and unusual medical firsts to old parenting beliefs, cultural traditions, and bizarre baby-related laws, these facts show just how fascinating early life can be.
If you missed the first list, you can also read Part 1.
1 Silent Orphanages Stopped Infant Crying
Some severely neglectful orphanages were described as “silent” because infants learned that crying did not bring attention or comfort. Psychologists observed that babies in these institutions received so little human interaction that they eventually stopped signaling for help.
2. A 2019 study found that infants who lived with dogs at three months of age were about 90% less likely to develop a food allergy. Researchers analyzed data from more than 65,000 Japanese infants and examined how exposure to household pets affected allergy risk during early childhood.
3. During the Habsburgs’ nearly 200-year reign of Spain, about 80% of Spanish infants survived childhood. The royal family fared far worse: only about 60% of Habsburg infants survived to age one, and only about 50% lived to age ten. Researchers linked the dynasty’s unusually high infant and child mortality rates to generations of close intermarriage, which concentrated harmful genetic traits within the ruling family.
4. For approximately 40 years, Martin Couney, the inventor of incubators, operated infant incubator exhibits that showcased premature babies to the public. He charged parents nothing for the care and instead funded the operation by charging visitors 25 cents for admission. At a time when many hospitals refused to treat premature infants, Couney’s efforts saved the lives of thousands of babies who otherwise had little chance of survival.
5. Human milk oligosaccharides, or HMOs, are a type of sugar found only in human breast milk. Infants cannot digest these sugars themselves. Instead, HMOs feed beneficial bacteria in the infant’s gut, thus supporting the development of a healthy intestinal microbiome during early life.
6 Peekaboo Builds Early Cognitive Skills
Peekaboo appears in cultures around the world, making it one of the most universal games played with infants. Developmental psychologists believe the game supports early cognitive development by helping babies understand that people and objects continue to exist even when they disappear from view. As infants learn to anticipate a face reappearing, they practice memory, attention, and social interaction skills.
7. Many schools have used infant simulator dolls that cry, burp, and require feeding and diaper changes to discourage teen pregnancy. The programs were designed to give teenagers a realistic glimpse of the responsibilities of caring for a baby. However, a 2016 study found that girls who participated in the program were about 36% more likely to become pregnant by age 20 than those who did not.
8. For much of the 20th century, many doctors believed that infants could not truly feel pain. As a result, some newborns routinely underwent major surgeries with little or no anesthesia because physicians assumed their nervous systems were too immature to process pain. Research gradually challenged that belief, showing that infants do experience pain and can suffer serious physiological stress during medical procedures. In 1987, infant pain was formally recognized.
9. Baby formula dates back to 1865, when manufacturers began producing commercial substitutes for breast milk. The product gained popularity as wet nursing declined and concerns grew about infant deaths associated with dry nursing, a practice in which babies were fed animal milk, bread mixtures, or other substitutes instead of breast milk.
10. During China’s one-child policy era, local family planning teams enforced birth limits on families who already had a child. Reports from affected communities described officials tracking down pregnant women who had gone into hiding to avoid the policy’s penalties. Enforcement measures sometimes included forced labor inductions late in pregnancy. Testimonies collected years later also described cases in which newborn infants were killed.
11 Anabaptists Rejected Infant Baptism Doctrine
In the 16th century, Christians known as Anabaptists rejected infant baptism and argued that only adults could freely choose to be baptized. This belief put them at odds with both Catholic and Protestant authorities, who considered infant baptism a fundamental religious practice. Because of their views, Anabaptists faced widespread persecution across Europe. Many were imprisoned, exiled, or executed for refusing to abandon their beliefs.
12. Ancient Egyptians sometimes gave opium to quiet crying babies, and the practice remained popular centuries later during the Victorian era. Caregivers used opium-based remedies to keep infants calm, but prolonged sedation sometimes prevented babies from feeding properly, leading to starvation and death. One of the most famous products was Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, which was widely sold in the United States and the United Kingdom during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to quiet infants and teething children. Doctors spent nearly twenty years warning about the product before it was withdrawn as a “baby killer”; its main active ingredient was morphine.
13. Lynlee became known as the baby who was born twice after surgeons performed a rare fetal operation in 2016. Doctors temporarily removed her from her mother’s womb to remove a dangerous tumor growing on her spine, then carefully returned her to continue developing in the uterus. The surgery allowed the pregnancy to continue for several more weeks. Lynlee was later delivered healthy.
14. Premature babies are often cast to play newborns in movies and television because they look closer to a just-born infant while still meeting legal requirements that allow babies to work on set. In many productions, infants must be at least 15 days old before they can be filmed. Casting directors also favor twins and triplets because they are often smaller and can alternate between babies during shoots.
15. The Navajo have a tradition centered on celebrating a baby’s first laugh. When a baby is around three months old, family members watch closely for the child’s first genuine giggle, which is considered an important milestone. The person fortunate enough to cause that first laugh must then host a celebration to mark the baby’s entry into the social world.
16 Winthrop Kellogg Raised Chimpanzee Gua
In the 1930s, psychologist Winthrop Kellogg adopted a chimpanzee named Gua and raised her alongside his infant son, Donald Kellogg. He designed the experiment to see whether a chimpanzee could develop human-like behavior and intelligence if given the same upbringing as a human child. Gua learned many household behaviors and initially kept pace with Donald in several tasks. However, she eventually reached a cognitive limit that training and nurturing could not overcome.
17. In 2018, a woman in San Diego gave birth to a premature baby at just 23 weeks and 3 days of gestation. The infant weighed only 8.6 ounces (245 grams), making her one of the smallest babies ever delivered alive. Despite her extremely low birth weight and the risks associated with extreme prematurity, she survived after receiving intensive medical care and grew up healthy.
18. In newborn babies, about 87% of the energy they burn is used to operate their brains. During the first years of life, the human brain grows at an extraordinary rate, forming vast numbers of neural connections and supporting rapid cognitive development. As a result, a newborn’s brain consumes a far greater proportion of total energy than an adult’s brain.
19. In 2016, a 32-year-old Brazilian woman received a uterus transplant from a 45-year-old deceased donor who had died from a stroke. Five months later, doctors found no signs of rejection, ultrasound scans were normal, and the woman was menstruating regularly, allowing previously fertilized embryos to be implanted. She became pregnant and, in 2017, gave birth to a healthy baby girl by cesarean section, marking the first successful birth from a uterus transplanted from a deceased donor.
20. In Nazi Germany, physician Johanna Haarer promoted child-rearing methods that discouraged emotional closeness between mothers and infants. In her influential parenting manuals, she advised that newborns should be kept in a separate room from their mothers for the first three months of life. Mothers were instructed to visit only for strictly scheduled breastfeeding sessions lasting no more than 20 minutes. Haarer’s ideas became widely distributed under the Nazi regime and reflected its broader emphasis on discipline, obedience, and emotional detachment in child-rearing.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
21 Benjamin Spock Revolutionized Modern Parenting
American pediatrician Benjamin Spock transformed child-rearing with his 1946 book Baby and Child Care, which became one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century. At a time when many experts encouraged strict, detached parenting, Spock advised mothers and fathers to show affection to their children and treat them as individuals. The book’s enormous success helped reshape parenting practices across much of the Western world.
22. In 2008, Chinese authorities faced a growing crisis after baby formula contaminated with melamine sickened tens of thousands of infants. Reports later revealed that complaints about the tainted formula had surfaced before the Beijing Olympics, but the scandal was not publicly disclosed until after the Games had ended. By then, about 54,000 babies had been hospitalized, and at least six had died from illnesses linked to the contaminated milk products.
23. In 2017, a baby boy was born four years after his parents died in a car crash in China. Before the accident, the couple had undergone fertility treatment and stored embryos in liquid nitrogen. Their four parents fought a lengthy legal battle to gain custody of the frozen embryos and eventually arranged for a surrogate to carry the pregnancy. After the child’s birth, all four grandparents took DNA tests to confirm that the baby was their biological grandson.
24. The goofy “baby talk” that many adults naturally use with infants can help babies develop language skills more effectively than normal adult speech. Researchers have found that the exaggerated pitch, slower pace, and stretched-out vowels make speech easier for babies to notice and process. These patterns help infants identify sounds, words, and the rhythms of language during a critical stage of development.
25. A newborn’s first breath is triggered in part by the process of labor itself. During contractions, blood flow through the umbilical cord temporarily decreases, reducing oxygen delivery and causing carbon dioxide levels to rise in the baby’s body. The increase in carbon dioxide leads to acidosis, which stimulates the respiratory center in the brain. This signal prompts the newborn to take its first breath and begin using its lungs instead of relying on the placenta for oxygen.
RE: Fact #7 (Infant Simulator Dolls Backfired Badly) – My high school only assigned those dolls to the girls in the remedial classes, not the ones in the enriched classes.
RE: Fact #17 (San Diego’s Tiny Miracle Baby) – As a teacher, I wonder how that extreme prematurity affected her development. I had a student born at 24 or 25 weeks who had significant delays. When I talked to her mom, she explained what happened and mentioned that they always kept in mind that she was effectively months younger than her actual age. It’s a strange concept to navigate.
RE: Fact #34 (Bradycardic Reflex Protects Young Infants) – So when my baby won’t stop crying, I can just use a blow dryer on their face to shut them up.
RE: Fact #6 (Peekaboo Builds Early Cognitive Skills) – It sounds silly, but this is important for parents, too. When you have a tiny human screaming at you, biting your nipples, and constantly making a mess, it is a huge relief when they finally recognize you and get happy. Peekaboo basically saves your sanity.
Developmentally, they really don’t understand that things exist when they aren’t looking at them. They think you vanish when you leave and magically reappear when you come back. In their minds, you essentially cease to exist when you aren’t around. It makes them seem like little jerks for not crying even more!
RE: Fact #24 (Baby Talk Accelerates Language Development) – I’ve been talking to my cat like that for a year and she’s learned absolutely nothing.
RE: Fact #37 (Toraja Tree Burials For Infants) – That’s a genius strategy to stop logging companies. Just make sure every single one of your trees is haunted as hell.
RE: Fact #44 (London Apartment Baby Cages) – I definitely think babies need plenty of fresh air and sunshine, but I am not convinced that sticking them in a cage on a window ledge is the right way to do it.
RE: Fact #35 (Johnson & Johnson Talc Lawsuits) – It feels like a massive oversimplification to just blame government regulation for issues in a market economy. Maybe we need to find a better balance with effective safeguards instead.
Funny enough, seeing the push for deregulation is actually what made me rethink my political stance and ultimately move toward more liberal views.
RE: Fact #20 (Johanna Haarer’s Detached Parenting Rules) – The more I learn about the Nazis, the more I’m starting to think they weren’t such great people.
I remember that from ‘The Rest Is History’ podcast. The host was going through the timeline and joked that the Nazis weren’t ‘great guys.’ It sounds ridiculous, but in context, he was highlighting that they were constantly screwing each other over until Hitler rose to power and betrayed everyone who helped him. It was meant to point out that they were even more evil than people already realize, but it definitely lands weirdly if you haven’t heard the whole thing.
We often get distracted by the scale of their evil, the wars and the slaughter, and end up buying into their own self-mythology. But they weren’t genius villains. Most of them were just petty, cruel, and vindictive thugs. The war machine often succeeded in spite of their power-hungry squabbling, not because of it. People struggle to recognize fascist movements because they can’t reconcile the ‘cultured genius’ image the leaders project with the reality that they’re basically just buffoons in suits. They write their own history, so they make sure to look smarter than they ever actually were.
RE: Fact #30 (Baby Aspirin Triggered Reye’s Syndrome) – That was the first drug I ever took behind my parents’ back when I was five or six. I knew it wasn’t good for me to take too many, but they were delicious and tasted just like those orange-vanilla push-pops. I’d climb up on the bathroom sink to reach the medicine cabinet and limit myself to one a day.
When I moved from the UK to Canada, I was stunned that their painkillers were sugary. It’s such a terrible, terrible idea.
RE: Fact #13 (Lynlee Survived Birth Twice Over) – Mom has the ultimate guilt trip card now: “Listen missy, I gave birth to you twice!”
RE: Fact #33 (Baby On Board Sign Origins) – So, you’re supposed to take it down when the baby isn’t in the car.
That was my thought too, it doesn’t make sense. Do people actually remember to take them down? You’d have rescuers digging through a wreck looking for a kid who isn’t even there just because the sign was still up. And honestly, would you even see that little plastic sign in a bad wreck? If the situation is that dire, rescuers will see the giant car seat itself, not some tiny yellow diamond that probably shattered or flew off anyway.
You reminded me of a funny story. My mom was in a bad accident when my sister was a baby. The first responders saw the empty car seat and freaked out, thinking the baby had been thrown from it. They searched the whole scene for her. My mom had hit her head and was acting loopy, so she couldn’t remember if my sister was with her, even though she usually did daycare pickup. They didn’t realize she was safe at home with my dad until they called him.
RE: Fact #19 (Deceased Donor Uterus Produced Birth) – Wait, let me get this straight. A woman was infertile, so instead of adopting, she had a dead woman’s uterus implanted, used donated eggs to create fertilized embryos, and then had a C-section to deliver the baby and remove the uterus. What was the point? To endure multiple surgeries for a baby that isn’t even genetically hers? Why not just adopt?
“Four months before the transplant, she underwent IVF which resulted in eight fertilized eggs that were then frozen.”
RE: Fact #35 (Johnson & Johnson Talc Lawsuits) – This reminds me of that line in Fight Club about dangerous cars: ‘Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don’t do one.’
RE: Fact #45 (Superfetation Creates Differently Aged Fetuses) – There are also rare cases where women have two separate wombs.
I really want to write a comedy movie about this called ‘Womb for One More?’
RE: Fact #29 (Newborns Begin Life Mostly Water) – I totally believe it! I’m pretty diligent about hydrating and using moisturizer, and I live in a rainforest, so the air isn’t even dry. Still, I’ll occasionally touch my skin and wonder why it feels so dry. I don’t have to wonder anymore, now I get it.
RE: Fact #23 (Baby Born After Parents’ Deaths) – Saying “My parents died four years before I was born” is quite the conversation starter.
I keep trying to come up with a good joke about frozen embryos and icebreakers, but I just can’t make it work.
“My grandparents decided to crack open a cold one. It was me.” Best I can do, sorry.
RE: Fact #9 (Baby Formula Replaced Wet Nurses) – Dry nursing just refers to using animal milk, while wet nursing refers to using human breast milk.
RE: Fact #3 (Habsburg Inbreeding Raised Infant Mortality) – The average Habsburg child was so inbred that they shared the same number of identical genes as the child of full siblings.
I recall reading that at one point, it would’ve been genetically better for a Habsburg if their parents had been full siblings instead of their actual relatives.
RE: Fact #9 (Baby Formula Replaced Wet Nurses) – That’s strange, considering pasteurization started in 1862 and led to lower infant mortality. Though, I guess it probably took a long time to become common practice.
RE: Fact #40 (Honey Can Cause Infant Botulism) – Whoever coined the term “floppy baby syndrome” to describe the result of infant botulism really has a dark sense of humor.
RE: Fact #25 (Umbilical Cord Triggers First Breath) – Nature is brutal. You’re born and suddenly have about thirty seconds to figure out how to breathe, get on your feet, and watch out for predators.
RE: Fact #33 (Baby On Board Sign Origins) – Actually, it’s just a way to warn cyclists, motorcyclists, and pedestrians that the driver is texting while driving.
RE: Fact #3 (Habsburg Inbreeding Raised Infant Mortality) – That makes sense. They were notoriously inbred, so it stands to reason they struggled with all sorts of diseases and disorders.
My favorite example is Maria Antonia of Austria. She had only four great-grandparents, making her more inbred than a child of parent-and-child or sibling incest. Her grandmother was also her aunt.
Seriously, would it have killed them to have an affair with an outsider once in a while?
RE: Fact #32 (Finnish Babies Sleep In Boxes) – You also have the choice to take the cash instead of the box. If you’re having twins or more, you get n+1 boxes, and you can mix and match boxes and cash however you want.
RE: Fact #22 (Melamine Formula Scandal Hit Infants) – It’s wild, because I was living in China at the time and this was all over the news.
Same here. It wasn’t just ‘tainted’, they were adding melamine to trick the testing machines. The government wasn’t trying to hide it; they used it as a public example of what happens when you mess up. It was absolutely everywhere in the Chinese news.
RE: Fact #21 (Benjamin Spock Revolutionized Modern Parenting) – My paternal grandparents were from the Silent Generation and firmly believed kids should be seen and not heard. My grandmother was convinced that my mom’s reliance on Spock’s book was why I was ‘spoiled.’ Visits to their house were a nightmare because she’d try to fight the ‘hippie’ ideas my mom followed. When my mom wasn’t around, they’d force me to sit still and quiet on the couch for hours or stand in a corner with my nose to the wall if I spoke at the table. My mom eventually found out, and I wasn’t left alone with them again. Later, my grandmother would constantly pick fights, coming to a head when I was 10 and offered an opinion during dinner. She demanded to know why my mom wouldn’t teach me to be silent like a child ‘should be.’ Things blew up, and after that, only my dad visited them. They even cut my dad out of the will, blaming his failure to control me and my mom. Good riddance.
RE: Fact #23 (Baby Born After Parents’ Deaths) – It makes me wonder if that’s what the couple would have actually wanted. The future of stored embryos is definitely something that should be addressed in a will.
given the tragedy, I’m just glad the baby was born into what seems to be a very loving, caring family. Things could have turned out much worse.
RE: Fact #17 (San Diego’s Tiny Miracle Baby) – 8.6 ounces is just a number until you compare it to the phone you carry around every day. That’s incredible.
To add to that, 244 grams is basically the weight of an iPhone 12 Pro Max, a Galaxy S20 Ultra, or even a standard roll of toilet paper.
The baby is obviously tiny, but it’s actually more surprising to me that those phones weigh that much.
RE: Fact #29 (Newborns Begin Life Mostly Water) – That is honestly such a poetic way to put it.
RE: Fact #37 (Toraja Tree Burials For Infants) – Reminds me of those locals in Lusitania who allegedly honor people by killing them and letting them become trees.
“Excuse me, Mr. Speaker of the Dead, but can we plant the injured person before they pass away?”
This inspired me to want a tree planted on my grave. I’m not talking about the kind where they put ashes in a potted plant, I want a tree to actually grow from my remains.
Sure, but first we’d have to stake you down, cut you open, and spread your innards around. Then you can pass away, and we’ll plant the tree.
RE: Fact #2 (Dogs Reduced Childhood Food Allergies) – It also lowers the chances of asthma, seasonal allergies, and other respiratory issues. Basically, dogs are kind of dirty and bring dust and pollen into the house, which helps build up a child’s immune system.
RE: Fact #40 (Honey Can Cause Infant Botulism) – This happened to my son 33 years ago when he was just a month old. I had to give him CPR twice before getting him to the hospital. It was the most terrifying time of my life. My mother-in-law didn’t realize honey was dangerous for infants and put it on his pacifier.
RE: Fact #50 (Historical Parenthood Ages Stayed Stable) – Exactly. High maternal mortality rates throughout history meant it wasn’t uncommon for older widowers to marry much younger women and start new families.
RE: Fact #50 (Historical Parenthood Ages Stayed Stable) – This data is limited because women have a biological window for reproduction while men don’t. Even if most couples were the same age, the men’s average gets pulled up by guys in their 50s and beyond who are still having kids.
RE: Fact #1 (Silent Orphanages Stopped Infant Crying) – My adopted brother was like this when my parents brought him home. I remember asking my dad why he didn’t cry, and he told me it was because the boy had learned no one would come, so he just gave up.
My brother was adopted too and had a similar reaction, but he learned that vomiting was the only way to get attention. He was throwing up multiple times a day until he was about three. Doctors and specialists couldn’t find anything physically wrong with him.
RE: Fact #47 (Toxoplasmosis Increased Male Birth Rates) – Why is everyone suddenly afraid of cats? Indoor cats are only infectious for a two-week window when they are tiny. It is a total myth that you catch it from adult cats. Actually, almost everyone who gets it picks it up from eating undercooked meat, not from their pets.
RE: Fact #22 (Melamine Formula Scandal Hit Infants) – People still don’t trust Chinese formula because of this. You still see people in other countries stocking up on it to send home, which can cause shortages. It actually became a point of tension when the pandemic started.
RE: Fact #1 (Silent Orphanages Stopped Infant Crying) – I’ve worked with children who went through this. It’s heartbreaking, but they can make progress, it just takes some time.
A colleague of mine adopted her disabled son from an orphanage where he had been chained to a wall and abused. He has a TBI and non-verbal autism from the experience; he was about three when she adopted him. She had to teach him how to express pain by making a big deal of it whenever she or he got hurt so he would learn to signal her. He’s 13 now and doing amazing; he’s such a sweet, cheeky kid.
People like your colleague are truly amazing. To manage your own life struggles while dedicating yourself to helping others like that is inspiring.
I’m so glad he’s safe and loved now. Your colleague sounds like an incredible person.
My cousin was adopted from Russia at 18 months old. She wouldn’t cry, and they said it would take a long time before she could walk or stand, but after four days with my uncle and aunt, she was already up and moving. She loved any food that was colorful, like bright bell peppers and carrots, no matter how it tasted.
RE: Fact #5 (Human Milk Oligosaccharides Feed Microbiomes) – It feels like everything boils down to your gut bacteria at some point. There is still so much we don’t know about it.
Exactly. This is why formula isn’t the best option, despite what many believe. It should really be a last resort if a mother is unable to breastfeed. I don’t know the deep technical stuff, but breastmilk changes over time; it adjusts to exactly what the baby needs. The nutritional makeup for a newborn is totally different than for a one-year-old. For what it’s worth, the WHO recommends breastfeeding for at least six months, and two years is great too. Gut health is tied to so many things, from mental health to digestive disorders. Antibiotics are life-saving, but we have to remember they also wipe out beneficial bacteria. That’s why I’m interested in the research on fecal transplants. If we find someone perfectly healthy with no history of heavy antibiotic use, maybe we’re moving toward a future where we can all maintain a better microbiome. Sorry for the rant.
RE: Fact #46 (Dr. Robinson’s Hanging Baby Experiments) – Now that we know babies can hang onto things, I did the math. Since an empty space shuttle weighs about 165, 000 pounds and a newborn weighs about 7.5 pounds, you would need roughly 22, 000 to 25, 000 babies to hold it up.
RE: Fact #12 (Opium Syrups Sedated Crying Infants) – This also happened during the Underground Railroad. I am not typically a fan of drugging babies, but if it keeps them alive and free, I guess it serves a purpose.
That makes sense given the circumstances. My friend’s house was actually a stop on the Underground Railroad, and the secret room where they hid escaping slaves has since been turned into a hidden wine cellar. I can easily imagine a mother trying to keep her baby quiet in there while hiding.
A lot of Hmong parents gave their babies opium to stop them from crying and potentially alerting Pathet Lao soldiers during the Vietnam War.
RE: Fact #11 (Anabaptists Rejected Infant Baptism Doctrine) – The fact makes it sound like every single Anabaptist died out, but that is not the case. Most of them actually escaped to America and settled across areas from Massachusetts to Maryland.
RE: Fact #43 (Brain-Dead Mother Delivered Healthy Baby) – They ended up disconnecting her organs 117 days after she passed. Brain death is final.
RE: Fact #19 (Deceased Donor Uterus Produced Birth) – This seems like an insane amount of cost, risk, and a waste of medical resources when surrogacy could achieve the same outcome. Either way, a fertilized egg is used, so it’s the same baby, but this method involves a 10-hour transplant surgery, five months of heavy immunosuppressants, anti-blood clotting meds and aspirin, nine months of gestation while on those drugs, and finally a C-section plus another surgery to remove the uterus. I really don’t think the cost and risk justify it compared to a surrogate.
RE: Fact #48 (Parents Lose 350 Sleep Hours) – As the parent of an 11-month-old, I feel like I am losing 350 hours of sleep every single night. Sigh.
I am so tired I also read that as “per night” at first. You have my sympathies.
RE: Fact #43 (Brain-Dead Mother Delivered Healthy Baby) – This sounds like something out of a fantasy novel: a baby born from a mother who had already passed, destined to bring darkness to the world.
That is basically how Berserk begins, although Guts’ mother was hanged from a tree rather than being kept on life support.
RE: Fact #19 (Deceased Donor Uterus Produced Birth) – I had to read that twice. I got to ‘after five months’ and briefly thought she’d somehow had the dead woman’s baby.
RE: Fact #49 (Canada Banned Baby Walkers First) – My younger brother once went tumbling down our basement stairs in his walker. He ended up landing in a pile of old clothes my mom had been meaning to clear out, which actually saved him.
I went down the stairs in my walker the day my parents moved into our new place, before they had a gate up. No laundry pile for me, just a massive bump on the head. Thankfully I am fine, but babies can really pick up speed in those things.
That sounds more like a failure to baby-proof the house than a fault with the walker. If a kid is mobile, your stairs shouldn’t be left open anyway, they could just as easily have crawled there.
RE: Fact #8 (Infant Surgery Without Anesthesia Era) – It was the same story for people with mental disabilities, like those with Down syndrome. It’s barbaric.
Same with Black people. During the era of slavery in the US, doctors performed medical experiments on enslaved people with no pain relief at all.
I don’t think it was just about them not believing pain was felt. I’m pretty sure it was because they didn’t care.
RE: Fact #21 (Benjamin Spock Revolutionized Modern Parenting) – Ironically, Spock’s ideas weren’t universally loved and faced a lot of pushback from conservatives who thought he was too permissive or unscientific. My issue is with the ‘too permissive’ label, as a lot of parents use that as an excuse to justify abusing their own kids under the guise of being ‘tough.’
RE: Fact #50 (Historical Parenthood Ages Stayed Stable) – Because of how biological factors skew the numbers, looking at the mode might give us a much clearer picture of human behavior over time. A simple average doesn’t tell us much.
Measuring the average age of a first-time parent would be much more useful than just the average age of all parents.
RE: Fact #3 (Habsburg Inbreeding Raised Infant Mortality) – Court painters were usually ordered to make the royals look better than they actually were. If that was the result of them trying to make them look good, the Habsburgs must have been incredibly ugly in person.
RE: Fact #40 (Honey Can Cause Infant Botulism) – Wow, 2.1% of honey having botulism spores is way higher than I thought. I’m so used to these warnings being about extremely rare edge cases. It’s obviously not the case that every baby exposed gets sick, but it’s still a real risk.
RE: Fact #22 (Melamine Formula Scandal Hit Infants) – It led to a baby formula shortage in Australia because buyers were clearing out the shelves to ship it back to China for a profit.
You’d think by now someone in China would be producing their own formula and marketing it as Australian. If they could actually make it safe, they’d make a fortune.
They still do that, clearing out the shelves to send it back.
RE: Fact #8 (Infant Surgery Without Anesthesia Era) – Were those infants just screaming the entire time? That sounds impossible for a surgeon to handle during a major procedure.
RE: Fact #16 (Winthrop Kellogg Raised Chimpanzee Gua) – I worked at a sanctuary that took in some retired chimps raised this way, and they were really messed up. They were much less well-adjusted than chimps raised by their own kind, with all sorts of strange behavioral quirks, some were even physically attracted to humans. It’s not a laughing matter; it was really sad.
That reminds me of another chimp named Lucy who was raised similarly. Her owners gave her copies of Playgirl magazine, and she eventually got so frustrated she tried to use a vacuum cleaner to masturbate.
RE: Fact #39 (Newborn Cries Reveal Language Exposure) – Does this mean you could identify a deaf baby right at birth?
I guess they’d cry without an accent? Whatever that sounds like.
I don’t know about birth-accents, but babies raised in deaf households definitely pick up sign language just as naturally as hearing babies learn speech. They even start babbling with gestures at the same age hearing babies babble with sound.
RE: Fact #17 (San Diego’s Tiny Miracle Baby) – I knew a woman whose son was born extremely premature; he was so tiny she could slide her wedding ring over his arm and it would hang loose. He grew up healthy, though, with just a few minor vision issues.
RE: Fact #18 (Newborn Brains Consume Massive Energy) – 5% energy for lava poops, 5% for spontaneous projectile vomiting, and 3% for everything else.
RE: Fact #20 (Johanna Haarer’s Detached Parenting Rules) – My mom told me that when she had a baby in Soviet Ukraine, they just took the infant away as standard practice. It was easier for the staff to manage the babies that way. Mothers only got them on a schedule. Mom said she couldn’t walk after the birth, so she was just lying there, dirty, listening to me cry in another room and begging the staff to bring me in. They just told her to wait for the next scheduled feeding. It was completely normalized. Husbands couldn’t even come in to hold the baby; mothers had to show them from a window.
Newborns and moms stayed in those ‘birthing homes’ for up to six weeks. The tragic rationale for that in the Soviet Union was the high rate of infanticide and violence caused by abusive, drinking husbands. Plus, it served as an early way to enforce collectivist control over families.
RE: Fact #42 (DNA Methylation Responds To Cuddling) – Damn! Why didn’t I turn out to be a serial killer? My mother told me this story about 15 years ago, before she died of cancer, I was 45 at the time. My brother David was two and a half when I was born, and he was the apple of my parents’ eyes. He got leukemia when I was born, but back then, they couldn’t distinguish it from mono, so they treated him for mono and just expected the worst. Mom focused everything on him, so she just fed and changed me and put me back in the crib until I was two and a half. When David died, she eventually noticed me smiling in my crib and started showing me affection, but then I caught mono, and she completely shut down again. My parents ignored me until they divorced in the fourth grade. She only brought this up because of her own leukemia. When I was leaving for college, I remember backing out of the driveway while she stood in the street crying, and I just kept going. She told me later that she was crying because she realized she hadn’t helped me at all, yet I was still going to a real college, and she wondered what I could have been if she had actually supported me. She died a few months later. I still wonder how I managed to turn out okay.
RE: Fact #13 (Lynlee Survived Birth Twice Over) – The tumor and the baby were roughly the same size when the surgery happened. She weighed only 1lb 3oz at 23 weeks, and her twin had already passed away before the second trimester. The tumor was essentially shutting her heart down. Mrs. Boemer stayed on bedrest for 12 weeks, and Lynlee was born for the second time on June 6th via Caesarean at nearly full term, weighing 5lb 5oz. The rest of the tumor was removed eight days later.
RE: Fact #4 (Martin Couney’s Incubator Baby Shows) – I’m grateful he invented something that helped save my life when I was a baby. Pretty cool legacy.
RE: Fact #5 (Human Milk Oligosaccharides Feed Microbiomes) – Please, just don’t shame women who couldn’t breastfeed. My wife couldn’t for medical reasons, and the amount of condescension we dealt with from others was awful. Formula worked perfectly for us, and we have a healthy, brilliant seven-year-old. Not breastfeeding doesn’t mean you’re failing your child.
I’m a big proponent of breastfeeding, but the way we shame mothers is ridiculous. I’m convinced it just increases the rates of postpartum depression. Whether it’s breast or bottle, a fed baby is what matters most. I’m sorry your wife had to go through that.
RE: Fact #6 (Peekaboo Builds Early Cognitive Skills) – Alan Watts argued that hide-and-seek is the primary game all others come from. In his philosophy, it is because we are all incarnations of the universe playing a game of hide-and-seek with itself, where we forget we are one and have to rediscover our connection to the source.
RE: Fact #27 (Thailand’s Ugly Baby Superstition) – I was going to judge that as super superstitious, but then I remembered that plenty of buildings here don’t even have a 13th floor.
RE: Fact #15 (Navajo First Laugh Celebration Tradition) – My wife is Navajo, so we followed this tradition with our boys. It’s a lot of fun, but as the time approaches, family members start joking about hoping they aren’t the one who makes the baby laugh first, Navajo families are huge, and that’s a ton of food to cook for everyone. When our oldest made our youngest laugh, our eight-year-old was in charge of the menu, so the whole celebration was built around scrambled eggs.
Haha, I relate to that on a personal level. I consider myself a pretty decent cook, but even I end up serving eggs for dinner sometimes. Scrambled eggs were actually one of the first things I learned to make on the stove.
RE: Fact #14 (Premature Babies Fill Newborn Roles) – I used to work as a production assistant on shows like Jane the Virgin and Shameless, specifically handling the baby actors. We almost always went with twins, or sometimes unrelated toddlers who looked similar, on Jane the Virgin, we had about four different kids playing the same character. There are so many strict laws, like only being allowed to have a baby on camera for 20 minutes. I’d be running a timer, and the second it went off, I had to swap in the next baby. It was such a scramble. Parents were always super excited to be there, like, ‘My kid is going to be a star!’ but in reality, they were getting paid $250 to hand their crying newborn over to a stranger. It was a weird job.
RE: Fact #28 (Rh Incompatibility Threatens Later Pregnancies) – I suspect this is what happened to my grandmother in the 50s. She had about five miscarriages, but back then, there weren’t any meds for it. I’m not even sure they realized it was a medical issue.
It’s so sad, because just a few years later it wouldn’t have been an issue. My mom had this condition, and by the time she had her six kids starting in 1970, they had released the “serum” she talked about. She was actually in a university science class where the professor hadn’t heard about the development yet because it was so new. She had to raise her hand and tell him her doctor said it wasn’t a problem anymore.
RE: Fact #26 (VVV-Venlo Signed A Toddler Prospect) – This kid is basically a legend. Not even two years old and already signed to a longer contract than most pro athletes.
RE: Fact #10 (Family Planning Teams Hunted Mothers) – That is horrific. It is so absurd that they called it a ‘Family Planning Team.’ Like they were just checking items off a to-do list.
RE: Fact #47 (Toxoplasmosis Increased Male Birth Rates) – How does that work, considering the baby’s sex is determined entirely by the sperm?
Maybe it triggers an immune response that leads to higher miscarriage rates for girls, similar to the Rh factor.
Toxoplasma gondii isn’t a bacteria; it is actually an apicomplexa, which is a type of protist.
Also, the rate of toxoplasmosis in the U.S. is over 20 percent nationally, and even higher in other places. If it had such a big impact on the sex ratio, I would expect that to be reflected in the birth stats for those areas.
RE: Fact #4 (Martin Couney’s Incubator Baby Shows) – I learned about this from the show Boardwalk Empire, which featured a scene about it in Atlantic City.
RE: Fact #12 (Opium Syrups Sedated Crying Infants) – Heroin is still used as a painkiller for severe cases in hospitals here in the UK, though they call it diamorphine.
I was given it for suspected appendicitis, and the first thing I said while under the influence was, “This is awesome, I can see why people get addicted to this!”
RE: Fact #24 (Baby Talk Accelerates Language Development) – “The way we instinctively talk to babies, with higher pitch, slower speed, and drawn-out sounds, isn’t just cute, it actually helps them learn language.” This helps clarify what the fact is talking about.
Exactly, that’s definitely not what people usually mean by ‘baby talk’, which is usually about mispronouncing words on purpose. At least pitch and speed help.
That’s a huge distinction, since ‘cute talk’ like ‘Look at my wittle boy, he’s so bigly big!’ can actually slow down language learning.
Thanks, because the original fact was super misleading. Most people don’t think of those speech patterns as ‘baby talk’.
RE: Fact #20 (Johanna Haarer’s Detached Parenting Rules) – Haarer believed this separation was essential for a baby’s ‘training.’ If a baby kept crying after being fed, changed, and given a pacifier, she told mothers to just ‘become tough’ and ignore them. She viewed infants as ‘pre-human’ with little mental life in the first few months, and she warned that carrying or rocking a crying baby would turn them into an ‘unrelenting tyrant.’ Her advice was basically a tool to indoctrinate mothers into Nazi ideology.
Ah yes, the classic pastime of crying.
Right, because what else is there to do on a Friday night besides cry until you fall asleep?
The first part is sort of right, but the conclusion is just total nonsense. Newborns are pre-human only in the sense that their brain is still booting up and they aren’t fully developed yet, like a seed is a pre-tree. But the idea that their mental life isn’t active is absurd. They are mapping everything out. You know how you instinctively know how an object would feel if you put it in your mouth? That’s because you did that as a baby. It’s critical, foundational learning.
It’s an insane level of neglect. There are so many health issues like dehydration or injuries that would go totally unnoticed with that little care. Thinking a crying infant doesn’t need touch is just wild. While I’m not a huge fan of evolutionary psychology, this is one of those times where the evidence of cultures carrying babies in sacks for months shows they lead to more resilient kids. The baby learns to regulate movement and noise through that feedback. Waiting until a year old to start that development is a huge loss. Ignoring potential medical issues on top of that is just child abuse.
Sounds like a great way to raise a generation of psychopaths.
RE: Fact #14 (Premature Babies Fill Newborn Roles) – This is why Full House used “Mary-Kate Ashley Olsen.” The network didn’t want the audience to know Michelle was played by twins, and it also made it easier to use them for Michelle’s Greek cousin as the characters got older.
Does anyone know how long they actually tried to keep up that charade? I grew up aware that both Mary-Kate and Ashley played the part in Full House because I watched their VHS sing-alongs and movies where their identity as twin celebrities was already public knowledge.
They got really lucky that Mary-Kate and Ashley look so similar. Since they are fraternal twins and not identical, they probably wouldn’t have been able to get away with both playing the same character once they got older.
I honestly believe Mary-Kate and Ashley are identical. It is possible for identical twins to have separate sacs and placentas based on when the embryo splits, and I think the doctor probably just saw two sacs and assumed they were fraternal. Even as teenagers, they were hard to tell apart. I will never be convinced they are not identical.
It was the opposite for me. I always knew the Olsen twins were twins, but I didn’t realize the character in Full House was supposed to be just one person.
RE: Fact #45 (Superfetation Creates Differently Aged Fetuses) – I would have thought the cervical mucus plug would prevent this from happening.
RE: Fact #12 (Opium Syrups Sedated Crying Infants) – Bayer also trademarked heroin as a children’s cough suppressant and marketed it as a non-addictive alternative to morphine.
I have asthma, and when I was a kid, I was always prescribed a brown bottle of codeine cough syrup. I remember taking it and just sitting on the couch feeling like I was floating. I once sat there thinking it was the best feeling ever and wishing it would never end. Now that I am an adult struggling with addiction, I often wonder if those prescribed meds played a part.
RE: Fact #33 (Baby On Board Sign Origins) – As a firefighter and EMT, I have to be honest: I never look for or at those signs. I just look inside the car. Adults in crashes are often unable to unbuckle themselves, so we just check the vehicle regardless. An empty car seat does make me nervous, though. We’ll double-check to make sure the baby wasn’t there or ejected during the crash.
RE: Fact #10 (Family Planning Teams Hunted Mothers) – Just a small correction: killing infants wasn’t national policy, though it did happen in some areas. The CCP set quotas, and it was up to local cadres to meet them. In cities, people who had more than one child were usually just fined, and in some rural or minority regions, the one-child rule wasn’t even really enforced.
RE: Fact #45 (Superfetation Creates Differently Aged Fetuses) – That awkward question every parent dreads: “Mom, how is my brother David only five months older than me?”
I am just picturing how confusing simple chats with strangers would become. “Wow, four kids! How old are they?” “Uh, they’re 10.” “Quadruplets? Amazing.” “No, these two are twins and those two are twins.” “Wait, what?”
RE: Fact #11 (Anabaptists Rejected Infant Baptism Doctrine) – Pentecostal churches still practice that because the scripture says “believe and be baptized, ” which means it is a choice you make after you believe.
It is the same for Baptists, Amish, and Mennonites. Many people in those denominations claim their history goes back to the Anabaptists.
RE: Fact #27 (Thailand’s Ugly Baby Superstition) – When my daughter was a baby, my wife and I were eating at our favorite Thai restaurant. It was quiet, and the kitchen staff came out to look at her. They were chatting in Thai while looking at her, and the hostess later explained that they were using that superstition.
RE: Fact #41 (Changeling Folklore Explained Autism Symptoms) – It actually makes sense why they believed that. Autism symptoms don’t really appear until after the first year, so you have a child who seems totally normal and social, and then suddenly there’s this major developmental regression. If you didn’t know better, it would be easy to think someone had swapped your baby for one that looked the same but was just ‘wrong’.
RE: Fact #28 (Rh Incompatibility Threatens Later Pregnancies) – Keep in mind this only applies if the mother has previously had an Rh-positive child. She could have had a dozen Rh-negative children without any issues.
In my experience, doctors don’t wait to find out anyway. The shot is harmless even if it isn’t strictly necessary, so they usually just give it to Rh-negative mothers if the father is Rh-positive or if his blood type is unknown.
RE: Fact #32 (Finnish Babies Sleep In Boxes) – Ah yes, the classic Finnish baby box. Expectant mothers wait every year to see what’s in the new box. It’s a total institution; when the new one launches, it’s a huge news item on TV. It’s a great box, filled with high-quality supplies and discount vouchers for bigger items like diapers. It’s really well-regarded, though I do wonder how many Finnish babies actually end up sleeping in the box itself.
RE: Fact #28 (Rh Incompatibility Threatens Later Pregnancies) – After a delivery or pregnancy loss, Rh-negative mothers usually get RhoGAM shots to stop their bodies from creating those antibodies.
RE: Fact #23 (Baby Born After Parents’ Deaths) – >At the time of the accident, the embryos were stored safely in a Nanjing hospital, frozen at minus 196 degrees ” in a liquid nitrogen tank. >A court battle gave the four grandparents-to-be the right over the fertilised eggs. >There was no precedent as to whether they could inherit their children’s frozen embryos, according to reports. >They were eventually granted the embryos, but it wasn’t long until the next problem occurred. The embryos could only be taken from the Nanjing hospital if there was proof that another hospital would store them. >But given the legal uncertainty around untransplanted embryos, it was hard to find another medical institution in China willing to get involved. >And with surrogacy illegal in China, the only realistic option was to look beyond the country’s borders. >Eventually, the future grandparents worked with a surrogacy agency and decided on Laos, where commercial surrogacy was legal. >As no airline was willing to accept a thermos-sized bottle of liquid nitrogen, the precious cargo had to be transported by car. “of 2542 km by road, a drive of ~29 hours.)” >In Laos, the embryo was implanted into the womb of the surrogate mother and in December 2017 the boy was born. >Citizenship of the child, named Tiantian, was another problem though and so he was born not in Laos but in China – with the surrogate travelling there on a simple tourist visa. >With no parents left to prove paternity, all four grandparents had to give blood and take DNA tests to establish that the baby was indeed their grandson and that both parents had been Chinese nationals.
It’s a small gripe, but it bugs me when people talk about ‘implanting’ an embryo. You transfer it, and then it either implants on its own or it doesn’t. It’s heartbreaking when that part of the process fails.
The lengths those grandparents went to is incredible. Good for them, and I really hope that child has a happy life.
RE: Fact #41 (Changeling Folklore Explained Autism Symptoms) – Back in 1895 in Tipperary, a woman named Bridget Cleary was killed by her husband in front of their neighbors because they were convinced she’d been replaced by a changeling. She was just suffering from an illness, but a priest had convinced her husband she was a fairy. People sometimes call her the last woman burned for witchcraft in Ireland, though it wasn’t strictly a legal trial. There was even a schoolyard rhyme about her for a long time.
The Lore podcast and the Amazon show covered that story really well. It’s a heartbreaking case; it’s wild how much damage ignorance can do.
RE: Fact #49 (Canada Banned Baby Walkers First) – It’s concerning. According to data, these devices cause thousands of ER visits for children annually and have been linked to infant deaths. Plus, they might actually slow down a child’s ability to walk, which defeats the purpose for most parents.
A two-week delay feels pretty minor when you consider there’s a six-month window for when babies typically start walking.