http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_081.html
Wow, Cecil, you really punted on that one. Thanks for the child-safety advice, but I was rather looking forward to hearing about the origin of the myth that cats can suck the breath out of babies. Any chance you might revisit this one and address the question that was actually asked?
I’m trying to imagine how a cat would do this. It’s not like they get trained in reverse CPR. Also, why would any cat do this?
It’s explained in the article - cats like to snuggle up in warm places, so it’s not at all inconcievable that a cat would accidentally smother a baby - sure, that’s not actually ‘sucking breath’, but to a distraught parent discovering a suffocated baby with a cat on it, the distinction might not be particularly obvious.
But Cecil never suggests that there’s any evidence that such events are the origin of the myth, and I really doubt they are. It’s not as if people have only recently figured out what smothering is.
I could see how a cat deciding to take a nap on your baby’s face could be a bad thing . . . but how the heck is the cat going to get into the kid’s crib? (Maybe if you place it right next to a chair or something . . .)
Anyway, I’d think it common sense not to leave a newborn unattended within reach of any animal. Likewise, you shouldn’t leave a precariously balanced vase on a ledge over your baby’s head, but no one’s talking about how the evil vases are out to squish babies. :rolleyes:
As to the annecdote about the drunk freshman, anyone who wasn’t seriously intoxicated would probably have reflexively pushed the cat off their face the moment he lay down – just like you would if a pillow or blanket were obstructing your breathing.
It seems kind of unfair to single out cats as dangerous. Babies and drunk people are vulnerable to all sorts of things, because they’re not able to defend themselves. Certainly they don’t belong in bed with an animal.
You don’t own a cat, do you? Most cats I’ve known could get into a baby’s crib effortlessly. They can climb, y’know.
Actually, they can teleport.
We have long had an uneasy relationship with cats. Sure they’re cute and all but everyone knows they are the Devil’s pet. Why wouldn’t they want to suck the breath from babies?
What’s important to remember is that we are not talking about now when we discuss things like cats sucking babies’ breath. We are talking old folktales which are not grounded in science. In a time where SIDS had no name it is not unreasonable to blame the nearest plausible explanation for a death. And if you heard that in the next town over a cat had taken the breath from a baby and you had a cat then why not make the link?
A final note on language. We often use language which is not literally intended. Many sights are ‘breathtaking’. That hawt guy across the road ‘took my breath away’. Do I mean that these things literally came and stole or sucked my breath out? Of course not. It’s not unreasonable that ‘sucking babies’ breath’ could be a rather colourful description of smothering.
Once, when I was sick with bronchitis as a kid I woke up to find a cat sitting on my chest and staring at me.
Hmm… bronchitis = stealing breath?
I screamed because I did not expect to find a tiny face inches from my own and the cat ran off.
We had two cats at the time and this was one of them.
Been reading Mercedes Lackey, have you?
Ha, wrong!
My cat can jump up on top of my shower cubicle from the edge of the bath (about 55 inches, give or take), and from the arm of an armchair to the top of the curtain rail. Floor to the top rail of a crib would pose no difficulty whatsoever! They’re determined little buggers, and surprisingly springy when they want to get up high.
No one suggested anything of the sort, merely that a grieving family looking for a culprit might jump to that conclusion. The weight of a cat on a baby could make the difference in plenty of senarios. Rare correlation, even rarer causation, and presumed intent . I don’t have any trouble seeing how it could happen.
Please don’t say we have to do the whole ‘how high can cats jump?’ thing again…
There’s actually netting you can buy to put over the top of a bassinet or crib to keep cats from jumping inside. We had one for our first baby’s bassinet, but our cat was more interested in getting as far away from the pink screechy thing as possible, so we never used it for baby #2. But yeah, they can jump pretty high, and a crib really isn’t that tall.
Too late to edit, but I should mention that we weren’t concerned about the cat sucking our son’s breath away–just that he might scratch or bite the baby. That’s a more reasonable concern, I think.
Cats don’t suck the baby’s breath.
Deranged Trolls living in the walls suck the baby’s breath.
See the Stephen King docummentary Cat’s Eye
It seems that the possibility of milk as something to attract a cat is being overlooked.
Don’t many babies drink milk? Or something akin to milk?
And most of the cats I’ve had … okay, all of them … like milk.
Might not a cat be attracted to a baby’s mouth for the milk? And might that not appear to some to be the cat sucking the breath out of the baby?
Huh. I’m surprised no one has referenced the recent case of Oscar, The Grim Reaper Kitty.
Oscar is a nursing home pet with a knack for snuggling up with folks who are within a few hours of death. Indeed, the staff has started to call in the families of patients Oscar zeroes in on since, as a harbinger, he seems pretty reliable.
Maybe the baby legend started after several cases of a dead baby being found in the company of a cat.
Perhaps cat allergies are at the root of this myth.
Since we all know the plural of “anecdote” is “data”, here’s mine:
Many years ago, I had a cat (nowadays I’m more of a dog person). Anyway, I was lying on my back in the middle of the living room, enjoying the ceiling fan (hey, it was Texas, in the middle of the summer). My cat wandered nearby and I decided to annoy him- after all, the family motto is, “If we didn’t pester you, how would you know we love you?”
So I started blowing at it, making its ears twitch. After a bit of this, my cat walked over to me, and deliberately placed his neck against my mouth. More than anything else, it felt like he was trying to stop me from blowing air at him.
I’ve often wondered if that’s got something to do with the “cat’s sucking baby’s breath” myth.