Skipping breakfast wrecks your stomach. Going out with wet hair gives you a cold. Bone soup is full of calcium. Some claims sound self-evident — they've been repeated for decades — but the evidence doesn't back them. This site collects 104 of them, and for each one it spells out: what the truth is, how the claim spread in the first place, and what to do instead.
33 of them can do real harm
104 entries · read 0/104
🩺Body
You'd think
After giving birth you can't wash your hair, shower, brush your teeth, or open a window — you must stay bundled up in bed or you'll get lifelong 'confinement sickness'
Actually
What the postpartum period actually calls for is hygiene, activity, nutrition, and emotional care. 'Sweating it out' has no basis — and extreme bundling causes real cases of puerperal heat stroke every year.
The evidence
The so-called 'confinement sickness' — back pain, headaches, aching joints after childbirth — has far more to do with hormonal shifts, carrying posture, and fragmented sleep than with 'catching a chill'. There's no evidence that washing your hair, showering, or brushing your teeth causes any of it. With heavy sweating and lochia, the postpartum period is exactly when hygiene matters most: showers (once wounds have healed), tooth-brushing, and clean clothes all lower infection risk.
The bundling carries real danger: puerperal heat stroke is a recognized form of heat stroke, and sealed, overheated rooms plus heavy clothing send new mothers to hospitals — with deaths reported nearly every summer. Staying in bed is no better: postpartum blood is in a hypercoagulable state, prolonged bed rest raises the risk of venous thrombosis (a leading cause of maternal death), and early mobilization is the standard advice. As for the lactation soups — they're mostly water and fat; eating balanced meals beats drinking broth.
To be fair: the objection is to baseless taboos, not to rest. Recovery is real — avoid heavy lifting, care for the wound, and don't skip the 6-week checkup. About 1 in 8 mothers develop postpartum depression, and two weeks of persistently low mood deserves screening and support, not dismissal as 'being dramatic'. ACOG frames postpartum care as a 12-week process focused on recovery quality, not behavior bans.
How it spread
Confinement rules were born in a different era: no antibiotics, poor nutrition, no heating — and puerperal fever was the top killer of new mothers. Back then, minimizing contact with water and staying covered was a reasonable protective instinct. Housing and medicine have changed completely; the rules just didn't change with them.
What to do instead
Wash your hair, shower, brush your teeth (shower and dry off promptly), ventilate the room, eat balanced meals, and get up and moving early. Watch the signals that actually matter: bleeding volume, fever, redness at the wound, low mood lasting more than two weeks. Don't skip the 6-week checkup. The best care a family can offer is sharing night feeds and housework — not confiscating her phone and making her lie still.
Can harmFollowing this one can actually make things worseStrong evidence
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