Today, expecting mothers are advised about common things like finding the right diapers so your baby doesn't have a rash to finding a high-quality nursing chair. In the past, every culture had some cringe-worthy pieces of counsel for new parents. Raising a newborn can be stressful. In that light, these parents fully embraced the somewhat ridiculous advice and inflicted them on the poor babies with the hope that it makes their lives easier.

Today, we will look at some of the pieces of advice from the past that almost seem comical now.

1. Never Think About Disfigured People

If you were pregnant in the early 1900s, you were not supposed to think about disfigured persons; otherwise, it could affect your child's physical looks. According to the science of eugenics, pregnant mothers were advised against thinking of ugly people or those affected by any deformity.

Moreover, pregnant mothers were urged to nurture an interest in admiring attractive pictures and engravings. You know why?

The pictures, which were often found in magazines and journals were expected to make an unborn child beautiful.

2. Avoid Feeding the Child When You're Angry

In the early years of the 20th century, it was believed that as a mother, you could transmit your emotional distress through the breast milk and make your baby colicky. Namely, if the mother is intensely worried, or thoughtlessly gets extremely angry just before the nursing time, she'll trigger the secretion of a substance known as epinephrine.

Subsequently, epinephrine will find its way into the bloodstream, raising the mother's blood pressure. This will produce not only colic in the baby but will also often throw the baby into severe convulsions.

3. Parenting Should Be Left To Fathers

In 1747, Dr. William Cadogan wrote a dissertation with the title: An Essay Upon Nursing, and the Management of Children, from Their Birth to Three Years of Age.

In the treatise, William suggests that fathers should be left to raise children exclusively. He argues that the business of raising children has been too long left to the management of mothers, who probably don't have a proper knowledge to handle such a task.

4. Newborns Need Opium to Cure Fussiness

The British authorities started to discourage the use of opium for recreational purposes when it reached its peak in the 1830s. However, opium use for medical purposes was deemed okay, even for children.

Under the brand of Stickney and Poor's had a syrup that was about half alcohol, but had small traces of opium in order to calm down infants when they were upset. Another company manufactured opium-filled, cherry flavored cough drops. They marketed it with cherubic children collecting cherries.

5. Don't Give Your Child to Much Love

It was believed that too much love would result in dangerous political ideologies. According to Dr. Walter Sackett, Jr., in his 1992 parenting book, if you teach your child to expect everything to be given on demand, you admit the possibility of planting the seeds of socialism. So, how would you avoid raising dangerous young socialists?

As a mother, you were to walk away from your crying baby and ignore them during the night and day. These were the only times you were to give your child attention:

• Time for eating

• When checking for wet diaper

• When the child is suffering from other irritations

In conclusion, these pieces of advice may sound ridiculous, but the babies somehow survived to give life to the subsequent generations. However, some of those tips would get you arrested today.