A Mother's Cure-All Dubbed "The Baby Killer"
From patent medications to food dyes: how we mothers just try our best.
Amongst family and friends, my curiosity about historical glass bottles is well-known. When I saw my brother this weekend, he handed me a bottle that he found at a construction site in Brooklyn.
“Have you heard of this before? Ms. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“It was known as the baby killer medicine. Mothers gave it to their children to soothe them, but they didn’t know it contained morphine, and many infants would go to sleep and never wake up. I found it on the site of an old outhouse connected to a church. Can you even imagine what the history of this bottle might be?”
With that chilling introduction, I began to dig deeper and learned about Ms. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup and other “patent medicines” that were sold in the late 1800s and early 1900s without any transparency as to what the medicines were actually made from. Mothers relied on advertisements, which often included testimonials and word-of-mouth success stories from other mothers, and widely trusted these remedies; why wouldn’t they? After all, they worked—almost miraculously.
Ms. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup contained a combination of morphine and alcohol that certainly soothed children, putting them to sleep quickly, and tragically, many of those children never woke up again. Babies became addicted to the medicine, and mothers became even more reliant on it. It was widely available without a prescription. This haunting ad shows a mother playfully dangling the bottle over her baby who is reaching for it—a little drug addict begging for its next fix.
In 1906, public outcry over poisonings and accidental deaths led Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act, requiring companies to disclose ingredients on product labels. Shortly thereafter, the American Medical Association warned the public not to use Ms. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup—yet it remained on shelves until the 1930s.
The mothers who gave their babies Mrs. Winslow’s weren’t negligent or uncaring. They were doing what they thought was best based on the information available to them. They were following the advice of other mothers and trusting in widely accepted remedies, as well as the stories told through the advertisements that surrounded them.
Just like that generation of mothers, I, too, strive to make decisions that are in the best interest of my daughter. Summertime is ice cream season, and this weekend, my daughter begged me if she could have Cookie Monster ice cream, "Just one more time?" She's only had it once before, but the memory of it stuck with her because potty humor is her favorite. I cannot even tell you how many times I've heard, "Beans, beans are good for the heart; the more you eat, the more you fart," followed by an explosion of giggles.
The desire to consume more Cookie Monster ice cream isn’t about the ice cream itself; it’s in the memory of how it turned her poop blue.
“No, Carolina, you can’t have blue poop ice cream,” I told her.
“Pleeeaasse?” she asked.
Cookie Monster ice cream scooped from a big bucket has no obvious ingredient lists, but we’re learning more and more about how harmful food dyes are for children, and my daughter is particularly sensitive to them.
As I repeat my answer, “No,” I’m struck by how similar this moment is to those mothers who gave their children Ms. Winslow’s Syrup a century ago. They were making decisions based on the best information they had. When my daughter first had Cookie Monster ice cream two summers ago, I didn’t think twice about the bright blue ice cream she was consuming. I just relished the joy of her independence making her own choices and laughing at her blue tongue in the mirror.
Two years later, am I a better mother? No, I’m the same Mom I was back then—I just have an awareness that I didn’t have a couple of years ago about how harmful these artificial colors are for kids.
The weight of motherhood remains the same across centuries; we do our best with the information we have hoping we’re making the right decisions. And if our choices are made from love, then isn’t that the best we can do?
Sorry—not sorry—about banning Cookie Monster ice cream, Carolina. One day (I hope) you’ll thank me.
Words of the Week
“Motherhood is the greatest thing and the hardest thing.” —Ricki Lake
Photo of the Week
I hope everyone had a safe and joyful 4th of July!
Wow, imagine giving children morphine and alcohol! Great research Lia. What an incredible history lesson for sure. Taking care of our children is certainly very important work. 💕💕💕