We all know that babies are gross. That’s just a fact of life. Parents are often surprised by how gross their lives have become after their little ones are born. Diaper changes lose their shock value, the smell of spit-up clings to everything, and eating food that’s been on the floor becomes totally normal. That’s just how it goes when you have to shepherd a little human with a mind of his own and curiosity to best any cat.

But diapers and spit-up are only the tip of the disgusting iceberg when it comes to babies. Those darling little bundles of joy have horrible secrets that will turn your stomach and make you question any future reproductive plans. Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but babies don’t know that yet.

10 Babies Have Two Sets Of Teeth

We’ve all had baby teeth, lost them, got some kickback from the tooth fairy, and then grew some proper adult teeth in their place. That’s a normal part of aging that we all go through. There’s just one teeny-tiny problem with that story.

When those adult teeth show up, we aren’t really growing them then. We actually grow all our baby teeth before we’re even born. After birth, adult teeth start to grow in behind them and stay in little pockets inside the jaw until we start to lose our baby teeth.^[1]

We then become eligible for tooth fairy trade-ins and have significantly fewer teeth than a baby. Next time you see a baby’s sweet, gummy smile, remember that it is absolutely full of secret teeth.

9 Babies Have More Bones Than Adults

Speaking of things babies have more of than adults, babies have around 300 bones in their tiny bodies. Compare that with adults, who only have 206 bones. Babies start out with a lot of cartilage and separate plates that will later fuse to make their adult skeleton.

There’s a good reason for that, too. Baby bodies need to be flexible to pass through the birth canal. The largest part of a baby’s body, the head, is made up of several bone plates that can shift during birth.

That’s definitely necessary and beneficial to the baby. But this also means that babies have a couple of soft spots, or fontanels, on their heads where the plates don’t touch.

The same flexibility that helps babies get out into the world can cause some problems once they’re there. If an infant lies on the soft spot on the back of his head for too long and too often, his head flattens out like a fallen souffle.

If left too long, the flattened back of the baby’s head can cause the entire head to warp into a teardrop shape. Possible treatments for a baby’s conehead resemblance can range from simply moving the infant to his stomach for playtime to having a special helmet made for him.^[2]

8 Babies Have Huge Eyes

There’s something absolutely magical about how babies gaze up at you with their big, wide eyes. They look so trusting and full of wonder. The whole experience sparks something primal in us that prompts us to protect the vulnerable little ones. At the very least, it seems to make us coo and fuss.

And that is probably for the best. Because if you stop to think about it, those eyes start to look a little odd. It’s hard to put your thumb on it at first because babies can be distracting. But if you get to the bottom of it, you may notice that a baby’s eyes look a little bit too big.

That’s because they are fairly big. A newborn’s eyes are already roughly 70 percent of their adult size. That darling little one whose whole body fits in the crook of your arm has eyes almost the same size as your own.^[3]

Keep in mind that babies also have two full sets of teeth in their jaws. Between those and the eyes, that’s a lot to fit in one little head. No wonder a baby’s head has to be about 25 percent of their body’s length.

7 Babies Start To Taste And Smell Before Birth

We all know that babies put everything they can get their teensy hands on into their mouths. Keys, fingers, and toys all end up in there eventually. It’s one of the ways they learn about the world around them. But most people don’t know that babies start tasting and smelling before they are even born.

You may wonder what they find to smell or taste inside a womb, and that’s a fair question. The answer is that they sample whatever ends up in the amniotic fluid around them. Foods such as vanilla, carrot, anise, mint, and even garlic will flavor the fluid. Some research has even shown that babies will prefer familiar flavors from their time inside once they are born.

That’s really neat, right? The amniotic fluid is a little gross, but otherwise, it’s pretty neat.

There’s one more thing about a baby’s taste buds that’s upsetting, though. Babies don’t just have taste buds on their tongues. Newborns may have them all over their mouths, down the back of their throats, and even all the way down to their tonsils.^[4]

6 Babies Are Born Covered In Thick, White Goop

Inside the womb, babies are constantly moisturized. But the amniotic fluid is highly acidic, which isn’t the best thing for newly developed skin. Something else has to protect the fetus’s skin from the acidity and keep it as soft as a baby’s bottom.

That would be vernix, which has been described as waxy, cheesy, creamy, and milky. Babies are born covered in a thick, white layer of vernix. This substance does more than just protect the skin. It also dampens sound, insulates the body, and acts as a lubricant during birthing. It’s healthy and natural, but it does make babies look like they’ve been rolling in a big tub of cottage cheese.

It’s almost impossible to clean all the vernix off a newborn. If you do, you might actually be sad to see it go. Vernix keeps a baby’s skin moisturized and protected.^[5]

Once it’s all gone, a baby’s skin dries out. And after months of being kept nice and moisturized, a baby’s skin becomes a flaky, peeling mess. Between one to three weeks, they’ll usually shed their entire first layer of skin. We might have to rethink the “soft as a baby’s bottom” bit.

5 Babies Menstruate

When in the womb, babies soak up everything they can from the adult’s body. That includes hormones like estrogen. Babies don’t have the need or ability to produce more, so estrogen levels drop to zero shortly after birth.

Estrogen causes a uterine lining to form, and the sharp drop in estrogen causes it to shed. So when the baby has a uterus, that’s exactly what happens.^[6]

Still, imagine the sheer horror and confusion new parents may experience when they find blood in their newborn’s diaper. The discovery drives them to rush their little one to the hospital where they’re told that their baby is just menstruating at two days old and that’s totally normal. It’s a lot to process, even without the terrified scramble to the emergency room beforehand.

4 Babies Are Covered In Hair

Everyone pictures their little bundle of joy differently during pregnancy, but we doubt anyone expects their baby to come out resembling the wolf man. But some babies do come out just like that, with hair all over their little bodies. This hair is called lanugo. It keeps the child warm inside the womb. It also keeps the equally gross vernix in place.^[7]

Not every baby is born with this thick layer of hair all over. Most of the time, the baby will do just what you’d expect a tiny wolf man to do—shed. They shed right into their amniotic fluid and then absorb it along with everything else in there.

3 Babies Pee In The Womb And Then Drink It

As we know, whatever is in the amniotic fluid gets absorbed into the baby. We usually think of the amniotic fluid as a liquid cushion full of nutrients, but it can made up of other things as well. After about week 10 of gestation, one of those “other things” becomes pee. That’s about when the baby’s bladder is developed enough to start passing liquid.^[8]

Sitting in a bubble of your own urine is bad enough, but you know babies don’t stop there. Five weeks later, the fetus gains the ability to swallow. Each day, they swallow several ounces of amniotic fluid, pee and all. And, as we learned a few paragraphs ago, babies can taste things in the womb.

2 Babies Sometimes Poop In Utero, Too

A baby’s first poop is called meconium. It usually happens just after birth, but some kids are a little too quick on the draw. In these cases, it can be passed in utero or in the birth canal. But where does meconium even come from—as babies don’t really eat until after birth?

Meconium tends to be made up of amniotic fluid and whatever the baby has shed into it. This ends up being mucus, bile, and lanugo. All that thick body hair that a baby sheds before birth gets swallowed or absorbed into the body again and becomes the bulk of the meconium.^[9]

When it’s passed in the womb or birth canal, it can clearly be distressing for everyone involved. However, it’s actually most distressing for the baby. Babies born after passing meconium will occasionally have it in their noses and mouths. Nurses will then need to remove the meconium from the newborn’s airways before the infant can breathe properly.

1 Science Says You Should Probably Poop On Your Baby During Birth

When giving birth, most women want to avoid pooping more than most anything else. There are plenty of forums and articles with advice on how to avoid the dreaded delivery room poop. However, research may show that pooping during labor is good for the baby.

The muscles down there are all fairly close together. A pelvis is not very big when you consider all the functions that have to go on inside it. Experts advise that the muscles used to “go” tend to be the same muscles used to push during labor. As is rarely the case any other time in our lives, if there’s poop everywhere, something has probably gone right.

Beyond proper birthing technique, research shows that getting covered in poop during birth may help start up the infant’s microbiome, which is the helpful bacteria that lives in and on humans. It helps with digestion and strengthens the immune system. But newborns, unlike their parents, have virtually no microbiome. Since bacteria from the gut is in poop, getting doused in it at birth gives the baby a bit of a microbiome starter kit.^[10]

But for that to happen, some poop does need to find its way into the baby’s gut, which is usually via the mouth. A baby’s ability to taste and smell at birth seems more like a cruel joke than a cool evolutionary quirk at this point.

Renee is an Atlanta-based graphic designer who enjoys researching strange topics and writing the occasional list.

Perhaps there is nothing more disheartening than giving birth to a stillborn baby. Nine months of wonder, hope, and promise are all dashed in a matter of minutes. Amazingly, a few babies who were born dead, or died within the first couple of breaths, somehow found their way to the land of the living. These babies experience the wonder of birth, the tragedy of death, and the miracle of resurrection, all within the first few hours of their life.

10Mary Ellen James

For six long years, Mary Ellen James wanted to get pregnant. She did once, but she miscarried. She even tried fertility treatment, but that didn’t work. Then a year after she quit the treatment, she found herself pregnant. On October 31, 1989, Mary Ellen went into labor 12 weeks premature at a hospital in Boca Raton, Florida, and the baby was delivered stillborn. The doctor massaged the infant’s chest, and there was no response for an agonizing 12 minutes, then the infant’s heart started beating. Then after three more minutes of massaging the chest, the baby girl was breathing on her own.

By December 1989, the baby, named Jennifer, was healthy but still small, even though she had doubled in weight. Amazingly, baby Jennifer went home just two days after Christmas in 1989, and then she went on to have a normal childhood.

9David Ring

On October 28, 1953, Leron Ring gave birth to a stillborn son, David. Thinking there was no hope for him, the nurses laid him on a table at the side of the room and set to work saving Leron because she was bleeding to death. She, too, was dying, and they even pronounced her dead. But Leron was alive and noticed that the baby on the table was moving.

When the nurses went to check on him, they found that he was alive as well. Both mother and baby survived the birth, but since David’s brain did not get oxygen for 18 minutes, he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy that affects his fine motor skills and his speech. As an adult, David became a Christian minister and motivational speaker. He became famous for his motto, “I have cerebral palsy . . . What’s your problem?” He also wrote an autobiography called The Boy Born Dead.

8Jacob Tomkin

Laura Tomkin from Hatfield Peverel, England, conceived through in vitro fertilization in 2014. On May 30, 2015, when she was 38 weeks pregnant, she was forced to induce labor. When the baby was born, he cried once, but once the cord was cut, the baby lost vital signs, he looked gray, and he wasn’t moving. The doctors immediately tried to kick-start the baby’s life. For 22 of the longest minutes in Laura and her partner Abbie’s life, doctors tried to get the baby’s heart started. Then, surprisingly, the boy started breathing.

The doctor who revived him said that there was a 1 percent chance of the baby surviving. Yet four weeks later, Abbie and Laura took the baby, whom they named Jacob, home with them. Doctors think that Jacob might be slightly brain damaged, but only time will tell what will happen with him. For now, Jacob’s mothers are appreciating every moment they have with their son and they are happy that he is home.

7Robin Cyr

Around 3:00 AM on March 9, 2014, 34-year-old Robin Cyr gave birth to her fourth child in a hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, during the delivery, the baby girl got wedged in the birth canal, cutting off the baby’s blood and oxygen. When she was delivered, she wasn’t breathing. The doctors worked frantically to save the infant, but after 28 minutes, she was pronounced dead, and the infant’s body was wheeled out of the room.

Two minutes later, a nurse who worked on the delivery walked back into Robin’s room, and she was completely stunned and near speechless. The baby was breathing. The surgeon was unsure how or why the baby started breathing, but he said it was a miracle. Robin named the baby Mireya, which is Spanish for “miracle.” Three months after Mireya’s birth, death, and rebirth, she was a healthy and bouncy baby.

6Ella Claxton

During the delivery of Rachel Claxton’s daughter at a hospital in Peterborough, England, in the summer of 2010, her placenta ruptured. When this happens, it is really dangerous because it deprives the baby of blood and oxygen. And of course, people, even during birth, need both to live. If they are deprived, it can cause hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). This can lead to brain damage that can leave people mentally and physically disabled.

The doctors worked hard for 25 minutes on Ella before they finally got a heartbeat. When they did, they wrapped Ella in a blanket that was filled with liquid. The blanket could change the core temperature of the body, so they made Ella’s temperature drop from 37 degrees Celsius to 33.5 (98.6 °F to 92). This temperature induced hypothermia, and this decreased the swelling in the brain. Over the next three days, the baby was chilled and monitored, and finally the blanket was removed. Amazingly, Ella was allowed to leave the hospital eight days later. Nine months after her birth, Ella was a normal baby, although she will probably need physiotherapy in the future.

5Logan Carroll

When Tami Carroll went into labor in April 1995, she was a little nervous because in 1993, she had a baby die at birth. Her pregnancy was normal, and there was nothing wrong with the baby’s heartbeat before she delivered. Yet, baby Logan was born unresponsive at 4:47 PM on April 6. The doctors worked on his tiny body, but at 5:15 PM, he was pronounced dead. They dressed the baby, which was now a grayish blue color, and they let the family hold him so they could say their goodbyes.

Then, over an hour after being born, Tami’s mother held the infant, and that is when Logan started to move. They told the doctor, but he said that it was probably something called “agonal breathing,” which is just the body still reacting to drugs, but by 5:55 PM, an hour and 18 minutes after being born without a heartbeat, Logan was breathing on his own. The doctor examined Logan, and it turned out he was actually alive. Logan was later diagnosed with cerebral palsy, but he has a rich life.

4James Engstrom

Bonnie Engstrom’s third pregnancy was normal, and she wasn’t expecting any problems during the delivery. When she did give birth in 2010 at her home in Peoria, Illinois, with the help of midwives, there were no complications, but when James was born, he wasn’t breathing. He was a bluish color, and he wasn’t moving. The midwife began to perform CPR, an ambulance was called, and while they waited, Bonnie’s husband baptized his stillborn son with water and a name: James Fulton. The Engstroms, who are devout Catholics, gave James his middle name in honor of famed American bishop Fulton Sheen, who was born in nearby El Paso, Illinois, and died in 1979.

While Bonnie, her husband, and one of Bonnie’s close friends waited 20 minutes for the ambulance, they prayed to Bishop Fulton. The ambulance arrived and took the mother and the baby to the hospital, where the doctors tried to resuscitate James for over an hour. Then finally, his heart started beating, and he started breathing on his own. Even though James was alive, the doctor warned Bonnie that he might have severe brain or organ damage that could leave James disabled. Yet, as James spent seven weeks in the hospital, he got healthier and showed no effects of being dead for over an hour.

In 2002, a campaign for Sheen’s beatification and canonization was started, and to be canonized as a saint, there needs to be two miracles associated with the candidate. So in May 2014, a seven-member panel of medical experts for the Vatican reviewed the case. They could find no scientific explanation for why James came alive or why he had no signs of permanent damage. The next step for the miracle is that it has to be reviewed by the Vatican and the Pope. If it is accepted as a miracle, Fulton is one miracle away from being canonized.

3Unnamed Baby Girl
Toronto, 2010

On the morning of February 17, 2013, an unidentified 20-year-old pregnant woman wasn’t feeling well and decided to walk to the hospital with her mother. They were about 500 meters (1,500 ft) from the hospital in Toronto, Ontario, when the woman went into labor. An ambulance was called, and she gave birth to a stillborn infant on the sidewalk. The temperature was – 15 degrees Celsius (5 °F). Both mother and baby, a girl, were brought to the hospital, and the medical staff tried to revive the baby, but she was pronounced dead a short time after being admitted to the hospital. The medical staff covered the little body in a blanket, and two police officers had to stand guard until the coroner came by to pick up the body.

An hour and 45 minutes after being born, the officers noticed movements below the sheet. They pulled the sheet back and felt for a pulse. When they found one, they got some medical help, and the baby was placed in the intensive care unit. She was released from the hospital a few weeks later. The hospital reviewed the case, and they believe that the baby had suffered extreme hypothermia that would have made her look dead. Changes were made at the hospital to hopefully make sure this mistake doesn’t happen again.

2Rose Servin

In April 1923, Rose Servin went to a hospital in New York City for her delivery, only to give birth to a baby boy that was unresponsive. Servin was obviously devastated, but the doctor, J.A. Tepperson, heard very faint signs of life. He took the cold body of the baby into another room, where he worked to bring the baby to life. Other doctors were called in, and they worked on the baby for two hours. That is when they decided to try a very new technique, and that was to inject adrenaline directly into the heart.

Almost instantly after the injection, the baby started to change color, and then the heartbeat got stronger and stronger. Within half an hour, the baby was breathing normally and the body was warm. A few days later, both baby and mother were allowed to leave the hospital. At the time, it was the longest that someone had been dead and been brought back to life.

1Yasmin Gomes

On July 9, 2013, 22-year-old Jenifer da Silva Gomes gave birth to her daughter, Yasmin, naturally at a hospital in Londrina, Brazil. Almost immediately after being born, the baby suddenly stopped breathing. For over an hour, the doctors made several attempts to revive Yasmin, but there were no signs of life. Yasmin was pronounced dead at 11:00 AM, and a death certificate was printed. One of the nurses who worked on the delivery didn’t want the baby to go into the morgue. Instead, she took the baby’s body to the hospital’s chapel where she could properly bundle the body.

Three hours after being pronounced dead, Yasmin’s grandmother and the mortician went to the chapel to pick up the body for the funeral. That is when Yasmin opened her eyes, and she was taken to the intensive care unit and appeared to be healthy.

Robert Grimminck is a Canadian freelance writer. You can friend him on Facebook, follow him on Twitter or on Pinterest, or visit his website.