My mother was so scared to use nail clippers that she indeed did chew off our nails, my sister and I. I’m guilty of doing it to my daughter once or twice. By the time she was about ten months old, she started gawking at me in horror as I raised her toe to my bared teeth.
Don’t you know that if you have a picture taken of you when you are pregnant that it will turn your unborn child into a Democrat/Republican? !!!111111
Gotta agree, I don’t think I looked a third that cute when I was pregnant.
Aww, thanks guys. I *feel *like a beached whale. My friend was just over for about three hours, and as I got up from the couch she said, “Wow, did you actually get bigger since I’ve been here?!”
Great. I’m going to have a baby gorilla.
Wow, I missed that one when he was little. Now that he’s twelve, do you think if I tickle his feet it will make him shut up? 
I wouldn’t allow a PHOTOGRAPH of me when I was that pregnant. My favorite story is of me being like 8.5 months, going to the pub to watch my husband enjoy a guinness and the bartender saying, “I can tell you’re having a girl!” “Oh really, how is that?”
“Girls steal your beauty away!”
Oh! Well! Thanks so much. choke on the tip, sweetheart.
OK - I have actually heard of this (licking the baby), years ago, as something suggested either in third-world countries, or by alternative medicine proponents. I think the theory is this: you lick the baby. This causes you to ingest some of the pathogens that the baby has been exposed to, and your body will learn those pathogens and develop antibodies to them. Then, when you breastfeed the baby, your breastmilk will have those new antibodies, which are perfectly designed to protect against things in the baby’s environment.
I googled it just now and could not find a cite, and I don’t remember where I heard it - but it was probably back when Moon Unit was a gleam in her daddy’s eye!
My thinking: Even if this would have much of an effect, chances are you’re breathing in the same sort of things the baby is exposed to so you’re developing those antibodies without any licking required.
Needless to say, I did not lick my children.
At first, I didn’t see which post you were referring to and I was trying to figure out what position you were in when you “did it.”
Please don’t take offense but, when does a baby stop becoming an “It” and a real person? I’m an old bachelor, don’t understand these things.
I rekon if I just popped out a kid, I’d wipe it down with some paper towels, and then hold and hug! (Does one give a newborn a bath?)
Yep! My baby got dunked in a little tub of sudsy water about thirty seconds after getting here. Her very first picture has a bunch of suds on her head
I don’t know about the nine years bit or the time trying to conceive (Oh baby! Oh my G-d!, Yes! YES! I have to clean the cat box.) but you arespot on about during pregnancy.
Me too, SiXSwordS.
My wife’s grandmother was just telling us how people used to think that if you looked at a dead animal carcass it would put a mark on your baby’s skin. A cat had died near their house one day when she was pregnant and her elderly neighbor was waiting outside in front of the driveway to warn her not to look at it so that it would not mark her unborn baby. This was in the mid-50s.
In micropreemie nursing/pumping class in the NICU of a major urban teaching hospital, we learned sort of the opposite: that the baby’s saliva on your nipple is somehow absorbed or sensed by your body, and any pathogens similarly accounted for and your milk adjusts itself to fight those bugs. Since our babies were mostly not nursing directly from the breast, the nurses suggested we swab their mouths with a very clean or gloved finger and smear their spit on our areolas. No one was sure if it would work the same way, but it was thought it couldn’t hurt.
This page alludes to the phenomenon in lay-speak; I haven’t hit on the right search for a pubmed or similar cite yet:
No offense taken! Actually, “it” was just referring to a generic “baby.” Since I knew from early on that both of mine were boys, they were “him” almost from the get-go.
And mine weren’t given a bath right after birth (newborn skin is extremely sensitive and I don’t think soap would be a good idea- it’s very drying), but they were wiped off with a warm wet cloth, IIRC (there was a lot going on at the time! 
). I got them pretty quickly, and gave each back only long enough to cut the cord, weigh them and give them their K shot.
My son’s grandmother was a very level headed woman. Even so, when I was pregnant, she didn’t want me to pick blackberries for fear of seeing a spider. She insisted just a glance would cause the baby to have a spider-shaped birthmark.
I saw spiders, no birthmarks.
Oh, and the heartburn thing… I should have bought stock in Tums. My son was bald as an egg.
I think that’s true while breastfeeding. My strictly non-scientific anecdote is about a friend who really restricted her food while pregnant and breastfeeding her first baby (no spicy food, chocolate, coffee, strong flavours) and then was much more relaxed the second time around. The first child is an incredibly nit-picky eater who only likes a small variety of bland foods. The second baby will try anything and has very few dislikes. I think child number two was exposed to a much greater variety of flavoured breast milk.
For some reason, this made me chortle. Hee! (I also don’t think you’re the only gnawing mother. I seem to recall another friend nibbled her baby’s nails, too. Those are pretty tiny fingernails to try and clip.)
Drink milk of magnesia during pregnancy so that the baby comes out ‘clean’. I heard this for the first time in the Dominican Republic, but don’t know if it is peculiar to this country.
My mom bit mine off. Said it’s too hard to clip them and you might get a little finger, and they’re just little thin nails.
I’ve done it, too. But a better way is to hang your clippers on the car seat, then when the baby is asleep, take that opportunity to clip his/her nails- no squirming!
And to any new mom or dad- yes, you WILL clip a bit of finger off your baby instead of a nail, at least once. Don’t worry about it, no lasting damage will be done. 