Dark History - 178: The Most F*ed Up Baby Products in History

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

Hi friends, happy Wednesday! I don’t know if this is happening to any of you out there, but suddenly, everyone I know is having a baby. Which means I’m looking at one baby registry after another. Honestly I don’t mind, I love buying baby stuff. It’s so little and cute.  But lately, I’ve noticed that the stuff people have on their registry is *next level.* Now, everyone gets wipe warmers… so the wipes that touch the baby’s butt aren’t cold.  There’s toy subscriptions for infants, so your baby’s mental development stays on track. They even make these mini dishwashers just for baby bottles. What else will they think of?? The baby industry is worth over *$358 billion dollars.* I me an, things have come LONG way. But it was always like this, it used to be *way* simpler. But does that mean it was better?  Turns out, there is a shocking history behind baby products I had never heard about. Many products that were marketed to parents to *help* their babies actually ended up seriously hurting or even killing them.  And with new baby products popping up every day, I’m wondering… are we doomed to repeat the past?  I can *not* wait to hear your thoughts on this one - whether you’re a parent or not. Welcome to the Dark History of Toxic Baby Products!  I sometimes talk about my Good Reads in the show. So here's the link if you want to check it out. IDK. lol: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/139701263-bailey ________ FOLLOW ME AROUND Tik Tok: https://bit.ly/3e3jL9v Instagram: http://bit.ly/2nbO4PR Facebook: http://bit.ly/2mdZtK6 Twitter: http://bit.ly/2yT4BLV Pinterest: http://bit.ly/2mVpXnY Youtube: http://bit.ly/1HGw3Og Snapchat: https://bit.ly/3cC0V9d Discord: https://discord.gg/BaileySarian RECOMMEND A STORY HERE: [e-mail] Business Related Emails: [e-mail] Business Related Mail: Bailey Sarian 4400 W. Riverside Dr., Ste 110-300 Burbank, CA 91505 ________ This podcast is Executive Produced by: Bailey Sarian & Kevin Grosch and Joey Scavuzzo from Made In Network Head Writer: Allyson Philobos Writer: Katie Burris Research provided by: Xander Elmore Special thank you to our Historical Consultant: Dr. Janet Golden, author of “Babies Made Us Modern: How Infants Brought Americans into the Twentieth Century.” Director: Brian Jaggers Additional Editing: Julien Perez and Maria Norris Post Supervisor: Kelly Hardin  Production Management: Ross Woodruff Hair: Luca Burnett Makeup: Nikki La Rose ________ The best way to cook just got better. Go to https://www.hellofresh.com/DARKHISTORY10FM now to Get 10 Free Meals + a Free Item for Life! One per box with active subscription. Free meals applied as discount on first box, new subscribers only, varies by plan. 

I don't know about you guys, but for me, everyone I know is having a baby, which I'm so happy for them. That's so great. But it means that I am looking at, you know, another baby registry after another, after another. And I don't mind. Buying baby stuff is fun, I think. It's kind of fun. I don't know. There's just so much, you know?

Lately I've noticed that, like, the stuff people have on their registry is kind of like next level. And I'm like, what is this? Wipe warmers? Should I get that for my seat? I wouldn't mind like a warm wipe. I was interested. But there's like lots of things. There's toy subscriptions for infants so your baby's mental development stays on track.

That's great. They even make these mini dishwashers for like baby bottles. I was like, oh, my American girl doll needs all of this. The baby industry is worth over $358 billion. I mean, things have come a long way. But it wasn't always like this. I mean, it used to be way simpler. But does that mean it was better?

I don't know. Surprise, surprise. There's a shocking history behind baby products that, you know, I never heard about. Many products that were marketed to parents to actually help their babies maybe ended up seriously hurting or even killing, said babies. And with new baby products popping up every day, I'm wondering, are we doomed to repeat the past? Well, look, I cannot wait to hear your thoughts on this one.

whether you're a parent or not. Welcome to the dark history of toxic baby products. Hi, friends. I hope you're having a wonderful day today. My name is Bailey Sarian, and I'd like to welcome you to my podcast, Dark History. Here, we believe history does not have to be boring. It might be tragic. Sometimes it's happy. But either way, it's our dark history.

Now, before we get into it, don't forget to like and subscribe because I'm always posting new content for you. Yeah. And let me know what you think down below. I love hearing from you in the comma section. And sometimes I read them at the end. Did you know that? Well, now you know.

Now, let's get into it. Nowadays, you know, if parents need advice on what to do with their baby, you know, what to buy the baby, They're going to get advice from your doctor, your parent, Google, you know, if they're looking for science-based advice, they hopefully are going to their doctor, but let's be honest, most people are going on to, like, social media and TikTok to get advice. And that's okay, I think. But back in the day, you just did whatever your mom or your neighbor did, you know? Moms didn't have Google back then. They just did what seemed to work for other people. It was all trial and air. Take, for example, pacifiers. know what a pacifier is, right? Today, they are like, they look a, like a rubber nipple shape. And they are usually attached to like a piece of plastic. The very first version of pacifiers were actually called sugar tits. Not lying. You think I'm joking? I am not lying. They were called sugar tits. I was like, tell me more. I'm interested. Listen, sugar tits, it was essentially a piece of

linen that was covered in a hunk of bread soaked in honey. I was like, give me some. Oh, oh wait, the best part, the rag would be dipped in alcohol like whiskey to help like numb the baby's gums. You know, this would give the baby some relief from the pain of teething. I'd be at like, at work on the computer, just sucking on that sugar tit. I say bring it back. The alcohol, it also caused the baby to essentially.

kind of like pass out but they always they woke up don't worry and they stopped crying for a few hours so to the parents it was a win-win now i don't have um i don't have children just a bird and bones no offense you guys but i know like a lot of people who do and i know as soon as the baby starts teething it's like oh it's like they're about to go through hell for the parents but also for the kid too it's just a whole thing and it's like oh i'm not going to be hearing from them for a while. But teething is essentially like, you know, when baby's teeth are like breaking through their gums for the first time, those sharp-ass little teeth just coming through the, the tender gums. I don't blame them for crying. Do you remember when your wisdom teeth came in? That shit

hurt. It causes babies to be in a lot of pain because their whole mouth is swollen and inflamed. Some experts compare their teething pain to adults having the wisdom tooth pain. Except as adults, You know, we can take like aspirin and stuff like that, and babies can. So even though pacifiers eventually transitioned to being made out of rubber, parents, they still loved giving their babies a little bit of booze to help them calm down. And that led to the creation of some very controversial baby products. Hey, I have COVID. Highly suggest you don't get it. It's been awful.

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You know, and then you're just like, well, you just like binge everything. All, like, you go into your cabinet and you just eat whatever's in sight. A box of Pop-Tarts. Yep, dinner. Oh, my God. Freaking spoonful of a peanut butter with some hot. honey drizzle on top. Dessert. Listen, life doesn't have to be like that. And all of that can change. Thanks to HelloFresh. HelloFresh is America's number one choice for home cooking. It's a meal kit

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Free meals applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only varies by plan. That's hellofresh.com slash dark. History 10 FM to get 10 free meals plus a free item for life. Now let's get back to today's story. I'm going to go lead home. So in the middle of the 1800s, aka the Victorian era, there were plagues and diseases just killing everyone. Tens of thousands of people in England every year. And there wasn't like a lot of medicine available for the for these things the science was an idea it was still new so remedies were mostly based on best guesses and vibes you could say especially when

it came to babies i mean look yeah babies can't communicate you know they just cry so doctors back then treated babies the same way that they would treat adults even if it was baby specific like teething so for years the only solution to teething was the sugar tits pacifier. And there was also this horrifying, just ouch practice done by doctors to relieve the pressure of teeth pushing through gums.

Doctors would take a scalpel, a.k.a. one of those old surgery knives and, like, cut open the baby's gums. You know, to give a teeth room to come through. I wonder if it did help. Any word from the babies? Any review? What was the feedback? Look, more pain, essentially. But to the doctors, it made a lot of sense. Whenever people came to a doctor with any kind of pain or disease, doctors would bleed their patients. So bleeding your patient meant that you would take a small knife, you would cut, you know, and collect blood into a bowl. Sometimes it helped. Sometimes it would kill the person, but it's what doctors did. We've actually talked about this on one of our dark histories.

Actually, a lot of our dark history episodes, one of the most famous victims of bleedings was George Washington. Yeah, remember? No? You don't? Well, he allegedly died from a combination of strep throat and a staff infection from doctors overbleeding him. Papa, no. No, Papa. That was my George Washington.

Your other options back then were blood-sucking leeches or you would gargle like a poisonous, nasty substance called Mercury. Not the planet. No. Mercury liquid metal that today we know is toxic. But back then they were like using it like Tylenol. Doctors would give it to patients and then the patient would start vomiting or like get violent diarrhea. and the idea was you'd be getting out whatever was bad inside of you would be coming out, either the mouth or the butt.

So thanks, Mercury. But again, they didn't know. But to us now, it's like, oh, yeah, not great options. So parents usually just stuck with, like, gum slicing because it kind of made sense. But all this changed when a midwife named Miss Charlotte Winslow decided enough is enough. She came up with a cure that soothed babies, maybe a little too well. So Miss Charlotte Winslow, she was a midwife from Maine, and she was like, look, we need a solution here that doesn't involve blood. So she got some ingredients together, and she made herself a little witch's brew.

So she mixed a bunch of stuff together, right? She turns it into a syrup. So this secret syrup, she tried it out on like the babies. that she cared for, and even her own daughter. So she would give like the syrup to these babies. And as soon as she would, whatever this was, this little miracle concoction, the babies would pass out cold, peaceful, painless sleep.

Many of them, the babies, had stopped crying for like the first time in days. So people are like, oh my God, what is this? And for years, she used this syrup on crying babies that she cared for. She swore by it. But it wasn't being sold or anything. She was just like DIYing it at home, you know?

So eventually, Miss Winslow's daughter, she grows up, and she married a man named Jeremiah Curtis, and he was a pharmacist. So when Jeremiah heard about this syrup, he was like, hmm, money. He had a pharmacy in Maine, and he knew that if he marketed it as a quote, unquote, wonder drug, he could sell it. So Jeremiah takes Miss Winslow's syrup, and he adds a few, like, tweaks to it. He called this invention Miss Winslow's soothing syrup. Now, we don't know exactly what was in the original recipe, but in Jeremiah's recipe, there was one very special ingredient, opiates. Yeah, party.

Specifically, morphine. Yeah, morphine is a powerful drug that, like, it knocks you, it knocks you out. Opiates like morphine were everywhere in the 1800s, and because it was one of the only, like, medicines available, it was prescribed all the time. You'd be like, what, you, your foot hurts, morphine. You're tired, morphine. Got headache, morphine. You want to, you just, you just don't, morphine. It was crazy.

So just half a spoonful of Ms. Winslow's morphine syrup would knock out a teething baby. Parents were relieved. They were like, oh, this is great. There was no blood, no leeches. And finally, they could get some rest. Now, at the time, many people, including babies and children, were suffering from dysentery. I know. What is this?

The organ trail? Kind of. Dysentary is essentially, like, medical-grade, um, bloody diarrhea. So sorry. Miss Winslow's soothing syrup contained morphine, again, an opiate. and opiates, they're known to make you constipate it. To you and I were like, oh, that's not, we don't want that, but this was a good thing because everyone was dying from diarrhea back then, so this was clogging everybody up.

It was trading one problem for another. They were, it was kind of great. So right away, the soothing syrup was a hit. Parents genuinely believe that like it was helping their poor babies. Jeremiah, along with his business partner, his name was Benjamin Perkins, threw a ton of money into marketing. Most adversements featured a woman reading a newspaper. She was actually reading an advertisement for Ms. Winslow's soothing syrup. And she had like small children around her.

And like the text would read, Miss Winslow's soothing syrup should always be used for children teething. It soothes the child, softens the gum. alays the pain, cures wind, I know, that's crazy, colic, and is the best remedy for diarrhea, 25 cents a bottle. What an adverse meant, huh? First of all, tongue-tied, and it cures wind? Great for the hair, because sometimes you do your hair really cute and you put on lip gloss, and you know when it gets windy and then it's just like stuck? Yeah, so if it can cure that, that'd be great. Oh, it means farting? Oh, I was really thinking weather.

Well, that's a shame. Wind means farting. How aggressive is your wind? Okay, anyways, wind means farting. Okay, so these ads ran in newspapers, recipe books, calendars. They even sold prints to frame in women's homes. Yeah, little art. back then, I guess.

They had one goal. Make sure women see an advertisement for their product every single day. Pretty smart. So by 1868, Jeremiah reportedly sold 1.5 million bottles each year. It was being made in America, but also it's sold around the world. Pharmacists could not keep this stuff on the shelves, but not for the reason you think. You and I know, as of right now in this very, moment that the main ingredient in the syrup was morphine.

But back then, people didn't know that. They didn't know. Throughout the 1800s, ingredient labels were not a thing. That was not a thing. You didn't know. You just trusted medicine, right? You didn't know. And again, they're like handing out morphine like crazy.

So it's like even if they did tell them this has morphine and I don't think they would even understand like fully what that meant yet. They were the test subjects for us to know that morphine is strong. But back then, the recommended dosage for morphine for babies was only a couple drops, so like two to three max. So you'd think the dosing in Ms. Winslow syrup would be similar, but no. For a baby under one month old, the recommendation was six to ten drops. Three-month-old babies were supposed to be given half a T-Win. And if you were six months old, you were parting.

Babies six months and older were supposed to be given three to four teaspoons per day. What a great time to be a baby. And again, like parents, they weren't questioning this because it was helping with the teething, the pain, and the dysentery. Now, again, the main reason that this stuff was flying off the shelves was because babies were turning into full. blown morphine addicts, breaking into home, stealing their shit, just to get the syrup. It's crazy. So these babies, they're just scratching their face, missing teas, smoking cigarettes, trying to feed that addiction. When the babies would wake back up, they would be screaming and crying, but it was believed to be because their bodies were addicted to the morphing that they were kind of

like going through a withdrawal. So they're screaming and crying. and then they're being, they're given more syrup in saying, oops, oopsie. Yeah. One California pharmacist shared a story about just how addictive this syrup was, saying, quote, I have a good customer. A married woman with five children, all under 10 years of age. When her last baby was born, about a year ago, the first thing she said was to order a bottle of Winslow soothing syrup. And every week, another bottle was bought at first.

Until now, a bottle is bought every third day. Bye. because the baby has become habituated to the drug. Did you like my accent? I think that's how everyone talked in the 1800s. Was this an 1800s quote? It doesn't matter. It was a quote.

I mean, that's so shocking to think about. Babies were literally going through withdrawal because they had accidentally turned into drug addicts by their parents. Oops. My bad, you know. But this wasn't even worst case scenario. By the 1880s, it was clear something, um, dark,

was going on. Babies were given these huge doses of syrup to go to sleep, and sometimes they didn't wake up. Parents blamed their deaths on dysentery or like other diseases that were spreading at the time. But for most journalists and medical professionals, it was, it became clear that the real baby killer wasn't some, you know, Victorian disease. It was the syrup. Now, morphine causes your breathing to become slow and irregular. And when you come Combine that with alcohol, the other main ingredient in the syrup, yeah, it was a party in a bottle, your body would be like fighting to breathe. Now, if you're given high doses of each, like these babies were, you essentially would like suffocate to death. I know.

In the early 1900s, there was a story about this mother in Seattle who lost her twin babies. She found them, you know, she's like pushing them in their stroller, and then she looked, and then they were cold to the touch. They went down. At first, when the coroner examined the babies, like their bodies, he believed that the mom had smothered them to death. Mm-hmm, so they're looking at her, like, you baby killer. But then another doctor examined them

and found that they had traces of the syrup in their bodies. Now, because of that, their deaths were ruled accidental. But it's just kind of scary, like, to think, like, you think you're helping your baby, and then if they die, and then you're now getting blamed for suffocating them, you'd be like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what? But that was just, like, one or two stories. I don't know how many told you right now, but, like, more stories just kept coming out. And once the press realized, like, what was happening and everyone's connecting the dots, they went in headlines like, Miss Winslow, soothing, syrup. another baby sacrificed. And then there was another headline like,

The Slaughter of the Innocence Continues. They just started popping up all over. They were calling the syrup a quote, Baby Killer Medicine. And they kind of weren't wrong. In 1905, a journalist exposed the corruption and death rates behind this unregulated medicine or medicines like Ms. Winslow's syrup.

And they realized, like, you know, the medicine wasn't going through an inspection process to make sure it was actually safe. Yeah, I skipped. Didn't do that back then, I don't think. The journalist quoted a doctor talking about the syrup saying, quote, the site of a parent drugging a helpless infant into a semi-comatose condition is not an elevating one for this civilized age. And it is a very common practice, end quote. Meanwhile, Jeremiah and his partner were making, in today's money, almost $9 million a That's a lot of money. Jeremiah started selling the syrup like all over the world, which now means that he probably was like responsible for killing millions of babies worldwide. You can call Mr. Worldwide.

But the syrup wasn't the only unregulated medicine out there. I mean, there were thousands. Finally, in 1906, after decades of doctors and journalists begging the government to do something, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act. Now, this is where those ingredient labels on our medicine comes from. So this act was all about product transparency, so people would know, like, what they're buying. The sales of Ms. Winslow's formula didn't really slow down until about 1914 when something called the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act was passed. Now, this essentially told drug companies how much of an opiate they could put in, like, an everyday product. After the Harrison Act, Ms. Winslow's soothing syrup dropped the morphine from its formula and the word soothing from its advertising.

I don't think anyone really noticed, maybe they, well, obviously, even though it wasn't the same formula at all, it still remained on store shelves into the 1930s until eventually the brand went under. To this day, we don't know how many babies died because of the syrup. It could be anywhere from tens of thousands to millions. It was sold on the market for over 60 years across the world. Even though the syrup caused so much tragedy, I mean, some people argue that it did change the conversation from like, what can we do to make the parents' lives easier to, hey, what's actually best for the baby?

Just a thought. I mean, at least people were kind of thinking about that now. But just because people thought something was good for a baby, Doesn't mean it actually was. It's the 1920s in New York City. By this time in history, over 50% of Americans had left the country and were now living in the city. Most families were lucky if they could get their hands on a two-bedroom apartment because it was so crowded. Over 5 million people were rubbing shoulders every single day, which led to lots of disease spreading.

Yeah. Specifically a disease known. as tuberculosis. I'm going to call it TB. It's easier for me. You understand. But tuberculosis, or TB, is essentially an infectious disease of the lungs. Now, if you have TB in your lungs, it's very easy to pass it on to other people. It spreads when someone coughs, sneezes, speaks, sings. They look at you. You could probably get it. But it's spread through like little infected droplets in the air that someone unknowingly inhales. Now, sadly, in the 20s, there wasn't a cure for TB.

Some people made it out alive, but most of the time, if you got the disease, it was like a death sentence. Oh my God, didn't it? What's His Name in Tombstone Die from TB? Val Kilmer? Love that movie. Love that movie. It feels like every old story, someone is always like laying in bed all sweaty and white, and they're like, and then they're saying their goodbyes. I'm going to miss you. And it's just saying, okay, so dramatic.

But it's true, though. I mean, everyone, everyone, it probably was like that, Bailey. So, shut up. Anyhow, TB. Without a vaccine or any type of, like, medication doctors, you know, I don't know. They were trying to come up with solutions to stop the spread of TB. And that's when they came up with an idea, an invention, something new. Fresh air.

nature's medicine they're like hey air what about air you guys we haven't tried that air fresh air so the idea came from um in europe at t b sanitariums infected kids and adults uh they would like spend most of their days outside on like a chair a beach like chair sitting okay just take it in the sun and fresh air hoping that this would help them heal faster in some schools, kids would get aired out during class. So, like, no matter what the weather was, teachers would open up the windows, air things out, and then start teaching. So kids would be huddled up in school blankets and beanies and, like, oh, my God, like, we're so cold. Oh, my God, teacher, close the windows. But at least we're not getting TB, air it out. It was wild. Actually, I mean, it's a, yes, it makes a lot of sense. air it out. So if you're an adult or a child, you know, there's a lot, it's easy to get fresh air somewhere. You can, like, go outside. But if you're a baby and you can't crawl or anything,

you're just a vulnerable baby, you're kind of screwed. You can't get that fresh air. Plus, there were pediatricians like Dr. Luther Emmett Holt, who were writing about the importance of airing out, especially when it came to babies. He wrote, quote, share is required to renew and purify the blood. And this is just a necessary for health and growth as proper food." End quote. At first, parents decided to air out their babies by putting them on roof on like the rooftops of the buildings and then they would just leave them out there. Like, bye baby. Um, but it wasn't the safest option. And that's when in 1922, a woman named Emma Reed decided to step in and design something that would give babies a good dose of

fresh air and also give parents peace of mind. She invented something called the baby cage. The baby cage. It basically looks like, it looks like just a dog cage, you know the wired ones. It looks like that. But it has a cover on it and I guess like a little slanted roof to protect babies from the elements. The cage has a little hook on it so you can place it like right outside your apartment window. Yeah, kind of like your plants.

So you put your baby in the cage, you hang them outside and they can get some fresh air while mom, of course, was inside cleaning the house. Now, you might think like this is absolutely insane. There's no way parents thought this was a good idea or safe, but people in the city loved these baby cages. Oh, when I saw pictures, I was like, get me one. I want one for myself. I want to hang outside, but I don't want, like, bugs and stuff on me. But I want to lay outside in my baby cage. I love them.

I think they're great. Bring them back. Well, don't, but, like, it's an option. But people love the baby cages. So even the first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, she used a baby cage. And I mean, if the first lady is using a baby cage, you know, People then are like, well, I'm going to use one too. Newspapers across the country, they ran ads for baby cages, encouraging parents to, like, give their babies a chance to breathe in fresh air in their bird cages.

By the 1940s, baby cages were less popular, but it wasn't because babies were falling to death or, like, getting frostbite. It was because modern medicine and, like, vaccines were created, and TB was less of a problem. problem. So baby cages just became a thing of the past. But I say bring them back. I think they're cool. Look at that baby. That baby's loving life outside in that cage. Nothing's happening. Protected. Birds can attack that baby. No one can steal that baby. It's a great option. And that the baby's crying, you could bug your neighbors and everyone. I like it. Thank you for wondering what I thought. So yeah, it became a thing of the past. Goodbye, baby cages. Yeah, and everyone just pretended that never happened, and we all moved on.

That is, until a war rolled around. If you're watching over on YouTube, you can see Paul came dressed in his Sunday attire. Sometimes he likes to dress up like a baby. And there's nothing wrong with that, if that's what he wants to do. Right, Paul? You love this. Mm-hmm. He has some sugar tits in his mouth. It sounds very sexual, but it's really, it's not, huh?

Is that a bonnet? It's cute. Good for you, Paul. And Joan, I see you did nothing, per usual. That's fine. I'm going to put you in a cage later, so you better shut up. I got a baby cage, and I'm really excited to try it out. Baby cage unboxing, and guess who we're putting in there?

Don't tell her. Okay, we're back. So today, everything is disposable, right? Plastic, spoons, water, box. bottles, shampoo, bunches, bottles, bottles, containers. And like, things aren't designed to be used over and over again. And this is something that has really only happened over the last century. Now, obviously, reusing things is way better for the environment.

But I feel like the companies, they make it a pain in the ass to, right? Like, it just, everyone, yeah, it's just so much easier to throw stuff away, and that's so bad. But like, especially if the product you're reusing is a diaper, right? You were going to come for me for my shampoo bottles and all that, but no, diapers, right? Dipers, diapers, diapers, so many diapers, lots of diapers. So in the late 19th and early 20th century, people only used cloth diapers. And these were diapers that were like, you know, DIY little projects. Usually parents would take like a cloth from old clothes or a blanket or just like, you know, whatever, and make cut it, make some kind of like diaper shape and then close the sides with clothespins.

Now, it worked with what you got. Cleanup was obviously not the best. It was a mess. And it required parents to use super harsh chemicals to like get stains and smells out. And a lot of the times these chemicals were causing babies. to have like diaper rashes. Plus, like, again, since, since many of these diapers were DIY, if you ran out, you know, you didn't have any cloth or whatever, maybe you just had one.

You were kind of screwed. It was just a constant battle to have clean cloth diapers available. By the way, I know a lot of people are still using cloth diapers today, and I'm not judging your cloth diapers, you know, because things are different now. I'm talking about back then when they didn't, listen, shut up. I'm talking about back then, not today. Okay, got it. Great.

Okay. So I did see, though, this woman who is using, this was what TikTok gave me. I was like, okay, girl, she was using cloth reusable toilet paper. She was like, when guests come over, these are the options I have. And it was cloth with stains on them to wipe with, and then you reuse it. and I was like, oh, oh, mm-hmm. So, and there really wasn't a change in the diaper world until the 1940s, when someone came up with a product that would change the world of baby's butts forever.

In the 1940s, a woman named Marion Donovan was adjusting to her new life. She was a fancy woman. She had recently quit her job as an editor at Vogue. Yeah, the magazine, you know, so she could get married and have a baby. So she was like living that Susie Homemaker situation. But Marion, you know, she was like, she was bored. She was bored. Oh my God.

She was like, I'm so bored. So she's at home now with her new baby. And she kind of like struggled with the same thing that a lot of mothers were struggling with in America, keeping up with those like nasty cloth diapers. So Marion, she wanted to invent a new kind of diaper, one that had to be smell-proof, leak-proof, and absorbent. I picture her, like, looking around the house, thinking to herself like, um, kitchen towel. No. Not a bad idea, but no. Bed sheet? No. Shower curtain? Yes.

Shower curtain. She looks at the shower curtain, and she rips it off its hooks. She whipped out her sewing machine And she got to work She ended up sewing an underwear-like diaper With an insert for like an absorbent pad So instead of those sharp pins like holding the diaper together She sewed in some snaps Pretty iconic and smart

She tested it out on her baby And as soon as she got the results She knew she had invented something amazing She decided to call this new invention Boater Yeah I was like, what? I guess the shower curtain material helped babies float if they wore it in the water.

Mm-hmm. I know. I should have looked into that a little bit more, but I, I, I, okay. So she patented her design. She registered it so no one could steal it. And then she confidently marched into the office of every major manufacturer in the United States. And everyone turned her down. They're like boater, noter.

Am I right? But Marion, she was like, you know what, if you guys, I don't need you, whatever, get out of my life. And she decided to sell them herself. So, Marion, she started selling these boaters in Saks Fifth Avenue in New York. Wow. And they sold out immediately. I mean, it was handy to have these things. They didn't have anything like this.

Two years later, she ended up selling her company for $1 million. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but there was a lot. She was a woman. If she wasn't managed to buy it without more. Anyways, not the point. She sold her company, and she made a lot of money off of it. Good for her. And then different versions of disposable diapers started to pop up everywhere,

but to be fair, like none of them were ever quite right. Then in 1961, an American engineer named Victor Mills was changing his newborn grandson's diapers. I know. This was probably his first time doing it, and he was like, ew, gross. I'm a man, I shouldn't be doing this. Anyways, he hated changing these diapers so much

that he instructed his fellow co-workers to help him create a product that would make the whole thing less gross. He's like, fix that. I don't want to do that anymore. So he worked at Proctor and Gamble, aka P.N.G. Big company.

P&G ended up creating a similar disposable diaper to the ones on the market, but theirs was way better. Why? Because P&G used something called disposable cellulose pulp core. I don't know. It sounds kind of gross. But it's not because this is what made the diapers super absorbent. And there was barely any cleanup for parents at all. So Victor created a company called Pamper.

so they could continue to make more baby products. Now, even though the product was amazing, pamper's in the beginning was a flop. One disposable pamper cost five times the amount of a cloth diaper. No one's buying that. So then P&G, they got to work developing a diaper that was easier to make and would be more affordable. It took them a little bit, but they figured it out.

And by 1964, they premiered their brand, new pamper's to the public. And immediately, they sold out. And from that moment on, pamper's never rested. They became the face of diapers across the country. Every few years, they'd introduced, like, a new diaper drop. You know, it was just like, hey, this new diaper has tab fasteners. You know, so the diaper won't fall apart.

I don't know. Different shapes to make the baby feel more. more comfortable. Different little doodles to make the baby feel cool. More absorbent quality. Your baby shits a lot. Well, guess what? It's not going anywhere. It was just a lot. They just kept doing these like merch drops, but for diapers. All this made them a trusted brand and the best selling diaper in America. Now I was like, ooh, I want to talk about pamper's because honestly, I heard about a controversy a little while ago. And whenever I hear about a controversy. I'm there, Googling. So in 2010, P&G received tens of thousands of complaints about

diapers made with something called Drymax Technology. Now this Drymax technology was being marketed as the greatest diaper innovation in the last 25 years. There were commercials, magazine ads, other things, you name it. Now that I think of it, I don't think I've ever seen like a diaper billboard. Have you? Maybe there are and I just just don't notice because I'm not looking for diapers so you probably don't notice. Okay. Anyways, everywhere. It's pamper's so you're gonna, you just trust it. No one knew what like dry max meant. To me, it just sounds like, oh, they're going to be dry to the max. So I'm going to get that, right? And a lot of people did. So customers were told that dry max made the diapers thinner, less bulky, and most importantly, more

absorbent but not long after they sold out parents started to notice something um not great happening to their children when the parent would lay the baby down and like to change the diaper you know they'd pull down their diaper and then they'd immediately see big red blister or splotches irritation inflammation all over their butts now there were some cases really babies would just be crying out in pain it was very painful uh no diaper rash cream or powder seem to address the situation and the blisters seem to be getting worse

by the day. It was so sad these poor little babies, you know, they can't tell you. So parents, they're looking around thinking like what, trying to put the pieces together and realizing that the only thing that had changed were these new diapers. So parents, they go onto

Facebook and they start sharing their experiences. And more people are like, hey, we're experiencing this too. Yeah, we are too and like a Facebook group happened and everyone's like yeah these freaking diapers what's going on well it turns out that the dry max technology allegedly was causing severe rashes and chemical burns when it came into contact with urine or feces which like that's what a diaper comes in contact with a lot so that wasn't good so class action lawsuits started popping up everywhere

Parents wanted P&G to pay for their kids' skin treatment and get rid of this DRI-Max stuff. Like, give us the old diaper stuff, whatever. Now P&G, big company, lots of money, okay? They're like, yeah, we're taking these claims seriously. We're going to do some additional testing to make sure that the DRIMAX technology is safe. And according to the Wall Street Journal, P&G said that their tests showed that their diapers were perfectly safe. They're like, that's crazy. It must be a you thing, not a us.

That's crazy. Bad parents, not us. Yeah, PNG, they 100% denied these claims, saying that the whole thing was a hoax. Yeah, a hoax done by moms who were trying to take down pamper's. P&G, no one wants to take you down. We want the, people want the diapers. Very convenient.

It's like, what the hell I, what? A hoax? What? Brian McCleary, a spokesman for P&G. Oh, he must hate his life. He has to represent some demon people. He said, quote, there's no evidence that a single baby has experienced a serious skin safety issue

as a result of dry max, end quote. You know these companies. You know these companies. They will never acknowledge it because if they acknowledge it, then they have to take responsibility for it. And that means money. And they don't want to do that. So, of course, they're not going to do that.

Well, something went down because a year later, Pampers was forced to discontinue their dry max diapers. And even though this was like a scandal for the company, of course it didn't affect them much. They still remain the best-selling diaper in America. I wonder, circling back to our syrup conversation, you know how it's like a lot of people didn't know what ingredients were in the syrup? What if they had to put ingredients in like diapers and stuff? Because obviously there are ingredients that are to make, not ingredients, products, chemicals, whatever you want to call it, being put into said diaper.

They should do that. They should actually make you do that. Well, they do that with clothes. They'll be like 100% polyester and stuff like that. Do they do that with diapers? Let me know down below. Because if they're using some kind of chemicals, like wouldn't you want to know? Because then if your baby's having a reaction,

you'd be like, okay, avoid that freaking chemical, right? I don't know. Anywho, so when I was researching this episode, I genuinely had like no idea how profitable the baby industry is. According to Empower, the baby industry is worth $358 billion across the world. People love buying stuff for their babies, especially if it's endorsed by a celebrity. Now, according to research by Empower,

quote, about 55% of men and 45% of women say that they would buy a product because they admire a celebrity endorser, end quote. Really? More men than women? Hmm. Remember when Jessica Alba came out with her baby products company called Honest? Yeah, everyone looked at her like she was like kind of crazy, right? They're like, you're an actress. Why are you making like this weird like little passion project thing that's okay?

It was new. It was different. But it was very profitable. And they had their own. own scandals about not being so honest with their ingredients, you can't trust anything, right? But it's a major like moneymaker and people love that brand, blah, blah, blah. In 2017, Jennifer Garner got in, she got in on the action with an organic baby food company called Once Upon a Farm.

They make a healthier version to those squeezable, like fruit pouches that kids love. If you look into it, like, where's the farm? What farm? She swears there's a farm. I'm, like, trying to find what farm? I couldn't find anything, so I don't know what farm. But whatever, that's fine. The company is worth a lot of money, like, over or around $100 million.

I don't know why I'm rolling my eyes. I'm just mad that people are doing well. What farm? What about being honest? Jeez. But these are just two examples. I could go on and on. There's a lot.

But then I was thinking, like, with that being said, I actually decided to start my own baby product company called Fire Tits. So it's kind of like it's a crazy idea, but you're going to love it. It's a pacifier, but it's a piece of bread soaked in fireball to give to your baby when they're teething or like sad or just like just to give your baby. Or it can even be given to the adult in your life who is dealing with said baby. Fire Tits. I think it's really going to take off. Let me know. I will get this company off the ground and I'm very passionate about it.

Then I can retire. Anyway, what I've learned today is that the baby products industry is just like any other industry. They'll find ways to capitalize on convenience to make more money. I mean, is your baby not sleeping? Well, here, you need this $2,000 rocking bassinet to put them to sleep. Does your baby cry when you change their diaper? Here, a headband that has like dangling toys on it so your baby can be distracted for two seconds. Is your baby hating tummy time?

Well, here, $200 pillow for them to lay on. I don't even have a $200 pillow to lay on, but whatever. All of the marketing is about making your babies as comfortable and as happy as possible, allegedly, for a price. It used to be all about necessity, kind of, well, yeah, cloth diapers. bottles, you know, whiskey pacifiers, maybe a rattle. Now it's just an excuse for marketing companies to guilt parents into buying more. And like maybe you want to, and there are helpful products out there to make things easier for you, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But just know, if you're a new parent and you're trying your best, you're doing okay. You don't need that $200 pillow, you know? You don't need all those doodabs to be a good parent. Just love, care, and cuddles. All this is free. And to be fair, I don't have a kid, so I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. But I just want you to know you're doing great

and you don't need all those expensive things, okay? I've seen those expensive-ass strollers that, like, people flex with. Like, it's about, like, how expensive the stroller is. And I'm like, is this even about the baby? Whatever. Anyways, like I said, I loki love baby cages. I think it's a great way to get fresh air.

I say bring one back. I got one for Joan. Sure, it's essentially a bird cage, but it's not because I'm calling it a baby gauge. It's fine, Joan. Joan, it's fine. Stop being so dramatic. Don't you love the fresh air? And you can't fly away.

She's so dramatic. I call dibs next. I won't end. Okay, friends, woo, that was a lot, wasn't it? That was fun. We learned so much. But hey, let me tell you about our next episode because it's super fun. We're heading straight into one of the biggest government scandals in U.S. history.

No babies this time, just big oil and backroom deals. And let me say this story has it all. Corruption. Bribery. Investigations. Bags of cash. A murder. Suicide.

And a massive cover-up. So, join me next time for the dark history of Teapot Dome. Yeah, it sounds random. Like random name, Teapot Dome, but just go with it. That's what's called, okay? Teapot Dome. Now, I'd love to hear your reactions to today's story, so make sure to leave a comment down below

so I can see what you're saying, and your comment might even be featured in a future episode. Now, let's read a couple of comments you guys have left me. Corey? Great username, just Corey. Wow. How'd you get that? But left us a comment on our oral hygiene episode

over on Spotify, saying, you know Marie Antoinette wore braces. Did she? Do you think they customized the rubber bands on her braces too? It was kind of cool sometimes. When people would have different, like, Fourth of July, and then they would do red, white, and blue, like rubber bands, and you're like, oh, okay.

Like, I wonder if they did that. I didn't have braces. It was too expensive for us. I guess I could do it now, but also, I don't want to. Anyways, Marie Antoinette, yeah, she probably had braces. Probably not. Because wasn't she British? They don't do that shit over there.

Is she British? Did you get to pick different colors for your braces? Let me know. Thanks, Corey. Great username. Just Corey. I love that. Izzy Whizzy 253

left us a comment on our Caesar episode on YouTube saying, quote, Paul and Joan let you in on the costume memo. Izzy, I know. Well, actually a couple of times maybe like two times two or three episodes they've let me in on the fun they've told me like hey this is

the episode like what we're going to dress up as so i actually yeah i know i got to like dress up too it was very exciting we were all in theme it didn't even matter when we were talking about it felt fun i finally felt like a part of the crew i loved it we went to a toga party afterwards paul ended up in a bush it was wild joan she drank some of i don't know what she drank was she went streaking down the street and I woke up with no pants on. It was so fun. We love parties. Theemed parties, not just any party.

But yeah, it was great. Thank you. Do you like to go to theme parties? No? Okay. Well, let me know. Heather King 7164 left us an episode suggestion. You should look into when it was raining meat in Kentucky in 1876.

What? I think it would be interesting. L.O.L. Also, I absolutely love you and love that you get me motivated to clean my home. You're the best, Bailey. Aw, thank you. I love you too, and I appreciate you so much. I wish I motivated me to clean my home. But what? I've never heard about stories about meat rain. Meat rain? Do I want to know? I'm a little scared. Why wasn't raining meat? Was it meat? I'm going to look into this because I, you've definitely piqued my interest. But, um, The thought of it raining meat is like, ugh. Must have been stinky.

Was it raw? Or like cooked? Because if it was cooked, I'd be out there with a bowl. Is that where that book comes from? What was that book called? Spaghetti rain, man. What was it called? Cloudy with the chance of meatballs.

Was that based on it? Was it a true story? Okay, well, thank you for the suggestion, Heather. And I love that I can help motivate you clean your home. Can you motivate me to clean mine? Thank you so much. Thank you guys so much for watching. and commenting, keep them coming because maybe you'll be featured in a future episode.

Huh? Hey, did you know you can join me over on my YouTube where you can actually watch these episodes? Yeah, on Thursdays, after the podcast airs. And while you're there, you can also catch my murder, mystery, and makeup. Hey, don't forget to subscribe, will you? Oh, and one more thing. If you didn't know, Dark History is an audio boom original. A special thank you to our expert, Dr. Janet Golden, author of Babies Made Us Modern.

how infants brought Americans into the 20th century. And if you didn't know, I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. I hope you have a good day. You make good choices, and I'll be talking to you soon. Goodbye.