# How did ancient humans deal with baby poop? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 15, 2016, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969 "2016-07-15T12:47:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2016, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/21 "2016-07-16T01:56:28Z")
> [@Me\_Billy](#): > > I imagine early cave women would have held their babies by the hair and not with their arm under the baby’s bottom? Why would you imagine that? ---
**Author:** ![Emiliana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@Emiliana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emiliana)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2016, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/22 "2016-07-16T02:06:03Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Why would you imagine that? One suspects that Billy has never held (or perhaps seen) a child. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2016, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/23 "2016-07-16T10:45:36Z")
I’ve yet to see an infant or young toddler with sufficient hair to use as a handle. Yeah, someone has never actually handled/cared for larval humans. ---
**Author:** ![dreamregent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6f9a4e/32.png) [@dreamregent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dreamregent)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2016, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/24 "2016-07-16T11:05:44Z")
> [@Nippless](#): > > I guess I’m asking what the first diapers were, because having little humans randomly piss and shit all around your sleeping area and generally all over seems like something of a pain in the ass when you don’t have wet wipes handy. Find a scientist who studies human coprolites (i.e. fossilized feces) and ask him/her. Perhaps some sort of evidence exists indicating particular coprolites were not produced by an older person. Over the years, I’ve emailed various scientists with questions and I’ve found they often respond. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2016, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/25 "2016-07-16T12:41:28Z")
> [@spamforbrains](#): > > Cervical cancer is caused by an STD (HPV) that we have a vaccine against today. Endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer are caused by incessant ovulation and menstruation, which is why women should get on hormonal birth control that stops both processes as soon as possible after going through puberty. Continuous birth control pills, hormonal IUDs, and implants all stop ovulation and menstruation. Modern women don’t ever need to have periods. That was the authors’ point, that modern western women menstruate far more often than our ancestors over their reproductive life - which is (they said) thought to be a contributor to a higher rate of ovarian cancer. The study suggested - about 2 times more periods. And - breastfeeding to a much later age probably had an effect on the “quality” of baby poop - but the key point probably is that typically there was less food all around, including for babies, so frequency was probably much smaller. In “kids these days” rants, many old timers will point out that before disposable diapers, potty training by 12 months was achievable and “parents today are lazy”. I had a summer of having to help (a little bit) with the cloth diaper process for my niece when I was 12, and I appreciate that dealing with poop more up close was a good incentive to implement early toilet training. I have also heard that very young children have messy but not smelly poop - as I understand, this is due to the lack of some intestinal bacteria. But they pick this up from the world around them, and the unhygienic things they put in their mouth, fairly quickly. So a breast-fed 2-year-old is not likely to avoid producing some serious stink. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2016, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/26 "2016-07-16T14:16:21Z")
> [@Nippless](#): > > I guess I’m asking what the first diapers were, because having little humans randomly piss and shit all around your sleeping area and generally all over seems like something of a pain in the ass when you don’t have wet wipes handy. [Elimination communication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elimination_communication), in which the baby’s mother learns to tell when the baby is about to poop so the mother can hold the baby above a suitable location (i.e., perhaps not in the sleeping area). ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2016, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/27 "2016-07-16T14:19:03Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > You need to resist putting 21st century prejudices on to prehistoric people. Apes manage pretty well without diapers and early people were unlikely to have a higher standard than a modern chimpanzee. > > Babies were easy to come by and most women were probably pregnant from puberty until menopause, if they survived that long. A baby that put the family group in danger might well not have survived infancy. No, babies were not “easy to come by”. Women often died in childbirth, and the IMR was quite high. When babies did survive, the woman typically did not become pregnant until the child was weened-- about 3 yrs. > [@Me\_Billy](#): > > I imagine early cave women would have held their babies by the hair and not with their arm under the baby’s bottom? Then the poop could cleanly fall to the ground. Cave women? But I think you’ve been reading too much of _The Aquatic Ape_. > [@spamforbrains](#): > > Hygiene is a relatively modern invention. Pee and poop and garbage everywhere was kind of normal until recently. Well, we still have garbage everywhere. > I doubt modern humans have ever been targets of predators, so making a lot of noise wouldn’t be a problem. Plus most infants were probably expected to die anyway, so if you got caught in a sticky situation there was an obvious solution to the noise. H/Gs don’t generate a lot of garbage. What you’re describing is better applied to early civilized humans (up to about the 19th/20th centuries), not primitive humans living a H/G lifestyle. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2016, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/28 "2016-07-16T15:51:34Z")
> [@Me\_Billy](#): > > I imagine early cave women would have held their babies by the hair and not with their arm under the baby’s bottom? Why would you imagine that ?! Even in the most low-tech of environments, people don’t do that. IIR my anthropology textbooks clearly, the most common way women around the world handle their babies is via thumbs or hands beneath their armpits, although I’ve watched amusing videos of African (Namibian, I believe ?) women rocking their babies to sleep holding one leg in one hand, an arm in the other. Like a gurgling ragdoll. But the babies didn’t seem to mind one bit, so, different strokes and that. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2016, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/29 "2016-07-16T17:32:52Z")
> [@Me\_Billy](#): > > I imagine early cave women would have held their babies by the hair and not with their arm under the baby’s bottom? > … I think (I hope) everyone is being whooshed. 🙂 Cartoon cavemen and cavewomen… ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2016, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/30 "2016-07-16T18:07:05Z")
> [@Emiliana](#): > > One suspects that Billy has never held (or perhaps seen) a child. > [@md2000](#): > > I think (I hope) everyone is being whooshed. 🙂 > > Cartoon cavemen and cavewomen… That’s my guess as well, as I think it’s fairly obvious from other posts Me\_Billy has made that he is a responsible and devoted parent. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2016, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/31 "2016-07-16T18:20:16Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > And - breastfeeding to a much later age probably had an effect on the “quality” of baby poop. It also effects quantity. Solely breastfed babies poop about twice a week. They do pee a lot, though. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2016, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/32 "2016-07-16T18:50:34Z")
Ancient mothers carried their ancient babies on their back all day long, and could quickly learn to tell when the baby was about to shit, and just took the baby out of the snuggli and held out a safe distance so it didn’t shit all over mommy. In some “uncivilized” parts of the modern world, they still do. Mothers riding on speeding buses and trains hold the baby out the window. They never drop them. Mothers are very proficient at holding babies, and never drop them. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2016, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/33 "2016-07-16T23:01:28Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > That was the authors’ point, that modern western women menstruate far more often than our ancestors over their reproductive life - which is (they said) thought to be a contributor to a higher rate of ovarian cancer. The study suggested - about 2 times more periods. > > And - breastfeeding to a much later age probably had an effect on the “quality” of baby poop - but the key point probably is that typically there was less food all around, including for babies, so frequency was probably much smaller. In “kids these days” rants, many old timers will point out that before disposable diapers, potty training by 12 months was achievable and “parents today are lazy”. I had a summer of having to help (a little bit) with the cloth diaper process for my niece when I was 12, and I appreciate that dealing with poop more up close was a good incentive to implement early toilet training. > > I have also heard that very young children have messy but not smelly poop - as I understand, this is due to the lack of some intestinal bacteria. But they pick this up from the world around them, and the unhygienic things they put in their mouth, fairly quickly. So a breast-fed 2-year-old is not likely to avoid producing some serious stink. Our ancestors often didn’t start menstruating until their mid- to late teens because of a lower nutritional status, so that was yet another reason for fewer periods. As a non-parent who was cloth-diapered, I’ve also heard from multiple sources that cloth-diapered babies generally start potty-training earlier because a full cloth diaper is uncomfortable enough that the baby wants to start doing something about it at an earlier age. (My sibs and I were cloth-diapered at home and wore disposables if we went somewhere.) ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2016, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/34 "2016-07-16T23:04:00Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Ancient mothers carried their ancient babies on their back all day long, and could quickly learn to tell when the baby was about to shit, and just took the baby out of the snuggli and held out a safe distance so it didn’t shit all over mommy. > > In some “uncivilized” parts of the modern world, they still do. Mothers riding on speeding buses and trains hold the baby out the window. They never drop them. Mothers are very proficient at holding babies, and never drop them. :eek: My brother’s best friend has 3 kids, and one of them (the oldest, no less!) pooped at the same time every day. At 8 months, they decided to start placing him on the toilet at that time, and it didn’t take him long to figure out that this was where he needed to do that, and would crawl to them and pull on their clothing until he had words. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2016, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/35 "2016-07-16T23:06:10Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > It also effects quantity. Solely breastfed babies poop about twice a week. They do pee a lot, though. Yours may have; my nieces pooped after every feeding! :rolleyes: One of them made small poops, with one big huge dump every few days. My sister found that out while babysitting one afternoon, and all she could think was, “THIS came out of a baby?!?!?” ---
**Author:** ![Me\_Billy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Me\_Billy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Me_Billy)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2016, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/36 "2016-07-17T01:21:13Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I think (I hope) everyone is being whooshed. 🙂 Yes I think you are on the right track! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2016, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/37 "2016-07-17T03:59:06Z")
> [@Me\_Billy](#): > > Yes I think you are on the right track! 😃 Not only was your whoosh subtle enough to snare Miller, one of our fearless leaders, but you bested a few other SDMB vets as well, including myself. Well played my good man!!🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2016, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/38 "2016-07-17T19:48:31Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > A couple of years ago, the latest hippy-dippy trend was undiapered babies. The advocates talked about women in third world countries or those in primitive tribes who carry their babies virtually all the time and learn to sense when the baby is about to poop, so the mother is able to hold the baby over the side of the path, or some other place where the baby poop won’t be in the way. Check out a movie called “[Babies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babies_(film))” where they follow a baby in several locations including Africa where the baby rarely wears clothes and the mother wipes the babies butt with her own knee then wipes that off with a corncob. Other times the kid just sits in the dirt and plays and does their business there. We dont put diapers on dogs and yet we live with their waste. In the movie you have all kinds of animals from dogs to chickens to horses walking around pooping and yet, people think human waste is so evil. The baby in the movie growing up in the “civilized” world is the one that looks odd. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2016, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/39 "2016-07-17T20:26:28Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > We dont put diapers on dogs and yet we live with their waste. In the movie you have all kinds of animals from dogs to chickens to horses walking around pooping and yet, people think human waste is so evil. We also don’t encourage our dogs to poop in the house. We take them for walks or put them out in the yard and teach them to communicate to us when they have to go. And we don’t leave the waste where it is. And I try not to handle it up close. I’ll pick it up with a long-handled scoop with a plastic bag on the end. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2016, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969/40 "2016-07-17T21:31:37Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > [Elimination communication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elimination_communication), in which the baby’s mother learns to tell when the baby is about to poop so the mother can hold the baby above a suitable location (i.e., perhaps not in the sleeping area). Interesting to me at the moment, with a nearly 4-month-old puppy who I would like to be able to ring a bell near the door hen he has to go out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-ancient-humans-deal-with-baby-poop/759969.md?page=3)