BuzzFeed compiled a list of bizarre things that people used to do when taking care of babies. Here are 10

 

  1. Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup was a 19th-century medicine for crying and teething babies that had alcohol, cannabis, morphine, and chloroform in it.
  2. Until the 20th century, babies were often nursed by livestock like goats and donkeys.
  3. In 1928, a psychologist recommended shaking hands with your baby as a morning greeting instead of a hug or a kiss.
  4. Baby cages, aka metal cages hanging out of windows that babies could play in, were all the rage in the 1930s.
  5. People used to regularly dip pacifiers in honey or sugar water because sucrose can be a sedative for newborns.
  6. Ancient Greeks fed newborns diets that included lots of wine. In ancient times, newborns were salted like meat to “harden” their soft skin.
  7. Before modern baby bottles were invented, little ones would drink milk out of cow horns.
  8. In hospitals, doctors and nurses were so wary of touching babies too much that they fed them like gerbils in cages.
  9. Instead of wearing diapers, many infants went bare-bottomed in the Middle Ages.
  10. Paris was once called “the city without babies” because most newborns were sent out to the countryside to be wet-nursed.

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