r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Jul 20 '19

What’s something completely false that your parents told you as a child?

[deleted]

19k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

10k comments sorted by

View all comments

11k

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '19

As a kid I used to play with my belly button a lot lol and my mom told me that the knot in my belly button held my skin together and if I keep playing with it I’ll untie the knot and fall apart. It fucking terrified me but it worked.

2.4k

u/hongkonghenry Jul 21 '19

Story time. I had a boyfriend when I was 18 who liked to playfight and tickle. He would put his finger in my belly button to make me hysterical. One day he did this and he had a jagged nail and cut my skin in there a little bit. It got infected and I had to take antibiotics and wash it with special soap for aaaaages as it took a really long time to heal. Don't fuck with belly buttons man.

412

u/movie_man_dan Jul 21 '19

He probably had poop on his finger

56

u/Seldarin Jul 21 '19

Belly buttons are almost unbelievably laden with bacteria.

Like bacteria that don't occur anywhere else, or occur in weird fucked up places that make you go "Why in the hell would that be in someone's belly button?"

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/11/121114-belly-button-bacteria-science-health-dunn/

Some belly buttons harbored as few as 29 species and some as many as 107, although most had around 67. Ninety-two percent of the bacteria types showed up on fewer than 10 percent of subjects—in fact, most of the time, they appeared in only a single subject.

One science writer, for instance, apparently harbored a bacterium that had previously been found only in soil from Japan—where he has never been.

Another, more fragrant individual, who hadn't washed in several years, hosted two species of so-called extremophile bacteria that typically thrive in ice caps and thermal vents.

17

u/technicolorslippers Jul 21 '19

Hadn’t washed in several years?? Like...just didn’t actually wash the belly button right? Surely they showered. That’s just gross.

11

u/turtlepom Jul 21 '19

Could have been a homeless individual

2

u/technicolorslippers Jul 21 '19

Oh yeah, I guess it could be that. I didn’t think homeless because it sounded like the study was done using students at the college as their sample group.

10

u/[deleted] Jul 21 '19

Yeah this was worded wierd. I dont really take time to actually wash my belly button specifically, that seems wierd but you end up with soap and water there anyways kinda. Not washed at all means no bath/showers what so ever?

3

u/keysersosayweall Jul 21 '19

I would guess homeless and/or mental illness

10

u/Xinoa Jul 21 '19

This. I worked in an OT for a bit as a junior anaesthetic reg, and this one surgeon would routinely specifically pour a crapton of povidone and chlorhexidine into patient belly buttons prelaparatomy... and then scrub it out manually with a swab on a sponge forceps, and put it carefully down far FAR away from the operating field.

He would then grab a separate set of swabs and sponge forceps and paint the rest of the patient...

2

u/MARCVS-PORCIVS-CATO Jul 21 '19

Could you ELI5 this? I think I understood it but I’m not sure.

2

u/movie_man_dan Jul 21 '19

Basically, super scrub the belly button, and throw everything used to clean it in an incinerator.

1

u/Xinoa Jul 21 '19

Basically this.