[robinhouston]

I've often wondered about the reasonableness, or otherwise, of the popular fear that one's baby might be smothered by a pet cat. When my daughter was a baby I was careful to keep the cats out of her bedroom, because I wasn't sure, but I suspected the risk to be overblown.

Are there any data on how often this actually happens? This article from the British Medical Journal http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1499543/pdf/bmjc... suggests it has happened at least twice in recorded history. If that is representative, the real risk is presumably rather small.

[jon_hendry]

I always heard it as "a cat will steal the baby's breath", which is a bit more supernatural than mere physical smothering.

That might have originated in seeing a cat sniffing a baby's exhaled breath. Much like a cat will sometimes sniff around your own mouth or nose, if its face is near yours.

[RK]

I thought the concern was more about the cat scratching the baby intentionally or otherwise.

[VladRussian]

i've seen many times toddlers doing various things to cats or dogs - the animal would never bite/scratch back. It would just get away if it is too much of toddler's "attention"

[icegreentea]

Unless the majority of the population took similar measures, reducing the possibly of it happening to begin with.

I don't think the cat -killing- the baby is really a risk though. Though I would think (though with no authority... looong way from even thinking about having a kid) that when raising a baby, you want to reduce the number of variables to deal with. That cat messing around with your baby (maybe she'll make him cry a lot) seems to be one of those variables you'll try to eliminate and then introduce later whenever your kid is now at 'chase the cat and make her angry' stage or something.

[dawsdesign]

Agreed. I at the very least wouldn't want the baby to be awakened by the cat.