Bizarre Medical Practices: An Era Gone By

If you have a child, you remember the first bath. How carefully you placed the baby in the infant tub with the water temperature just right. The slippery feel of skin under your fingers as you soap your baby clean. In this fourth “Era Gone By” article we will take a look at how Dr. Fisher taught nurses to instruct their new moms in bathing an infant. Nurses Announcements Archive Article

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Bizarre Medical Practices: An Era Gone By

Dorothy's hands shook as she prepared each item for her newborn's bath. The list of needed articles and instructions she received from the hospital was as long as her sleeve. After reading the paper five times, she was still nervous. What would she do if she forgot something? I can't do this, she thought to herself. Looking around the room, she recounted in a whisper everything on the list as she saw it on the counter: vaseline, paper-mache bathtub, two large towels, two sponges, bath water thermometer, olive oil soap (she smiled when she saw the soap, she had made it herself), pure talcum powder, alcohol, toothpicks and cotton, and the large flannel bathing apron that lay on her lap ready for baby.

Hearing a coo from Robert in the bassinet, Dorothy almost dropped the thermometer on the floor. Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she tested the water. 98.8 degrees, that was just the right temperature. Picking her newborn up from the bassinet, she put him on her lap on top of the flannel blanket to undress him. Once he was stripped, his eyes widened and his legs began kicking with force that she remembered fondly. After wrapping him in the flannel, she gently soaped his face and then his hair. Glancing at her instructions, she read, " after washing the scalp and hair, place the baby in the tub for one to three minutes to finish washing".

Feeling the ache in her back, Dorothy leaned over Robert to sponge his body down. After wrapping him back up in the flannel, she brought him over to the bed to dry him. Just as she was instructed she dried every nook and cranny. Robert flailed his tiny arms and legs in his newfound freedom making Dorothy giggle in spite of her nerves.

Reaching for the glass bottle, Dorothy began rubbing alcohol on Robert followed by talcum powder. She was careful not to put too much talcum powder behind his knees and especially around private area just as her instructions said because she surely didn't want him to get irritated skin. Everyone knew that if he began scratching his private it would lead to masturbation and she couldn't let her son begin such a bad habit at such an early age.

Once Robert was dressed and swaddled in his blanket, Dorothy took great care to wrap a toothpick end with cotton. Ever so gently she inserted it into his ears and twisted it to clean the ear canal. He turned his head in the direction of the ear she was swabbing then began to whimper. Pulling out the swab, she gasped at the site of the blood on the end of it, the sharp end exposed. Picking up another toothpick, she swabbed the ear again, then each nostril. She was determined to do everything correctly.


A mother's intentions over the years have remained the same; to love and care for their child to the best of our ability. Modern techniques and improved baby supplies have revolutionized the safety and health of babies. Once again we look to Louis Fischer and his book, The Healthcare of the Baby to help us see how far we have come in such a short time. He adamantly instructs nurses to teach new mothers to avoid any drafts in the room when bathing a baby. It was thought that the baby would catch a cold or some other illness from circulating air.

Rubbing alcohol nowadays is used for rubbing tired feet of an adult, but Fischer recommended it after every bath. Seems like the infant would lose a lot of heat, much needed heat directly after a bath. Powder may still be used but not to the degree it used to due to respiratory problems from the powder.

During this era, there was a lot of misconceptions about human nature as you may have noticed that Dorothy was supposed to prevent the baby from touching himself. It was thought of as a "bad habit" to masturbate, something that was looked at as unhealthy. It seems silly to us that a baby touching their genitals would be called masturbation rather than a natural progression of a baby recognizing their own body.

Let us not forget the horror (I felt horror) when Dorothy reaches for the toothpick! Wrapped in cotton or not, even if the toothpick was blunt ended, sticking a piece of wood up an infant's nose or in their ear is not a good idea. If that wasn't bad enough, he instructs new moms to pour talcum powder in the naval area, put several layers of cheesecloth over that and wrap their abdomen in a binder. That was 1930 navel cord care, to wrap it up because it could "rupture". When the baby coughs, sneezes or pushes with a bowel movement, a hernia could appear at the navel area.

In this "Era Gone By", we have looked at newborn bath care. Some of the techniques seem absurd to us, even dangerous. What will they say one hundred years from now about our baby care? What are your thoughts?

References

Fischer, Louis. The Healthcare Of the Baby. New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1929. Print.

Read my other "Era Gone By" articles:

Prenatal Care Practices: An Era Gone By

Nursemaids and Common Medical Conditions: An Era Gone By

Disease Transmission and Treatment: An Era Gone By

Gastrointestinal Columnist
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Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.

Lovely article. As a single mom, I learned to give baths in a jiffy. Fast and effective. I never bought a bath tub and instead sanitized the kitchen sink and bathed baby in there. Lots of it is part of my culture and perhaps 'dangerous' to some. Never soaped my child's face either. Plain water. In this mobile and fast-paced days, being a single working momma, I'd never accomplish anything if I followed instructions, recipes or lists lol.

I enjoy reading your posts about the history of care. I also wonder what advancements will occur over my lifetime. What will we look back and frown upon as being dangerous ignorance?

Specializes in Pediatrics, Emergency, Trauma.

This article reminded me of the many kids I have taken care of bathed, and have explored while bathing...I always wondered what nurses of a different era would've though to such "exploring". ;)

Great article!

I cringed when I read toothpick. I was like "what is that for?" then I realized q-tips were brand new back then so not everyone could afford them and just cringed; of course it happened, nice ruptured ear drum (and was the cotton still stuck in there? Hello infection.).

Gastrointestinal Columnist

Brenda F. Johnson, MSN

61 Articles; 326 Posts

Specializes in Gastrointestinal Nursing.
xoemmylouox said:
I enjoy reading your posts about the history of care. I also wonder what advancements will occur over my lifetime. What will we look back and frown upon as being dangerous ignorance?

Yes, I wonder that too - What will they say about us in a hundred years. It's fascinating to look back.

anon456, BSN, RN

3 Articles; 1,144 Posts

Years ago I found a small book that was given to my grandma to take to the doctor when my dad needed checkups. My dad was born in 1953. It had weekly tips and instructions. My grandma wrote in other instructions given to her by the doctor that were specific to my dad's needs or her questions. One of the things in the book was to start feeding a baby finely pureed meats and egg yolks by age 6 weeks, and introducing pureed veggies by 2 months of age. Another talked about how mother's milk was inadequate and formula was better. It gave instructions on how to make the formula, which seemed to be lacking in a lot of nutrients compared to formula made today. It is probably why they had to supplement with the pureed foods. It gave instructions to always wear a clean apron when feeding the baby its bottles. Overall quite fascinating stuff.

Also, referring to the title of the article, preventing masturbation was one of the main reasons circumcisions became so popular in Victorian times and became a routine procedure for the educated upper class. Masturbation was thought to lead to mental illness and moral failings. It also defined the upper class from lower class, who could not afford the procedure or didn't see why it was necessary. This is aside, of course, from the minority religious groups who saw it a necessary part of their religious practices.

Emergent, RN

4,243 Posts

Specializes in ER.

I have a great collection of vintage books, many of which are medically oriented. From The Care of the Baby, by J.P. Crozer Griffith MD 1905:

In this connection we may leave for a moment the exercise of the body-muscles in general to consider the training of certain others--namely, those which control the emptying of the bladder and the bowels. By the time it is three months old the baby becomes conscious of these acts, and even before this early age its education may be begun. It is most liable to empty its bladder soon after a meal, and to open its bowels with some regularity as to time. If the mother will hold it over a receptacle on her lap a little while before either evacuation is expected, the child will very gradually learn to recognize the purpose of the procedure and will act accordingly. As the baby grows old enough to sit up, even though partially supported, it may be placed in the nursery chair at the proper time, and always with the greatest regularity as to the hour. Patience and perseverance will accomplish the desired teaching at last. It scarcely need be remarked that punishment for delinquencies in this line is totally out of the question at any age. Of course, children differ in the rapidity with which they learn this control. Many have accomplished it by the age of a year: most should have done so by eighteen months of age; all ought to have learned it by the end of the second year at latest, and some may be trusted during the day when six months old, or even consideraby less than this. The control is always decidedly less during the night.

Farawyn

12,646 Posts

Nice title to draw us all in...

Great article. My mother the nurse would clean out my ears and bellybutton with a Q-tip- hard! And loaded me with TALC- now all powder is corn starch based. On hot nights I had the treat of being doused in Jean Nate- which in those days was pure rubbing alcohol.

I had baths in the sink, my kids had the plastic bath tub.

No car seats.

It will be interesting to see how our practices will be viewed in 40 years.

An aside:

My boys were allowed to "touch it" whenever they wanted, but as they got older I told them they had to go in private if they wanted to touch it. My then 3 year old said "MOM, I want to TOUCH my WINKY!" went in to the bathroom for 2 seconds and came out, yelling "DONE!"

*facepalm*

Red Kryptonite

2,212 Posts

Specializes in hospice.
xoemmylouox said:
What will we look back and frown upon as being dangerous ignorance?

:whistling: :whistling:

I wasn't even gonna say nuthin' but someone else brought it up so......

anon456 said:

Also, referring to the title of the article, preventing masturbation was one of the main reasons circumcisions became so popular in Victorian times and became a routine procedure for the educated upper class. Masturbation was thought to lead to mental illness and moral failings. It also defined the upper class from lower class, who could not afford the procedure or didn't see why it was necessary.

A hundred years from now our continuing practice of infant circumcision will be regarded like we currently view lobotomy. Europeans already look askance at us and some go so far as to call us barbarians over it.

kbrn2002, ADN, RN

3,822 Posts

Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.

I'm not that old...really. There were no car seats used when my sister and I grew up, we didn't use seat belts and cars weren't air conditioned so during summer trips there were my dads cigarette ashes and random papers flying all over the car. Dad also always had a beer open after he was done with coffee. We took an over 3000 mile round trip to the Grandparents every summer, looking back it's kind of miracle nothing bad ever happened.

Coralbell

11 Posts

Specializes in UR, QA, OB-GYN, MS, PEDS, LTC.

As a new Mom 25+ years ago, my "helpful" mother in law told me that my cat would suck all the air of my baby's lungs and suffocate him! She also said that a fan blowing on a baby would cause the infant to have a heart attack!