I don’t know what it is about baby fingernails, but so many new moms are scared to death of cutting them. They’ll bite them, file them, and peel them off, but using fingernail clippers on a squirming two-month-old seems daunting to most moms. I saw a baby today whose mom has been asking me for two whole months how to cut the baby’s nails. She’s been too scared to even file them. So today she actually brought her baby fingernail clippers in to her appointment, handed them to me and said, “Here. Show me please!” I figured, “Hey, it’s no big deal. I cut my own nails all the time. How hard can it be?” I casually took the clippers, gently held baby’s hand, slipped the clippers into place, triple checked to make sure I was only cutting her nail, and “clip”, it was done. I handed the little nail to mom and said, “See how easy that is?”

Then I noticed something.

A tiny red spot was forming on the baby’s fingertip.

The same finger whose nail I had just clipped.

And it was growing.

I thought, “Maybe mom won’t notice. Maybe I can quickly put a band-aid on it without her seeing. Maybe I can quickly dab it away and she won’t see.”

But even the most unobservant mom is going to notice blood dripping from her baby’s fingertip.

I remembered another mom who had brought her baby into the office because the finger was still bleeding an hour after she’d accidentally cut it. At the time I’d thought, “I can’t believe that mom did that!”

Thankfully, this time it was only the tiniest of cuts. Barely even a scratch. It wasn’t even dripping . . . just a kind of very slow ooze. Nothing a little band-aid couldn’t fix.

I apologized, of course. There really wasn’t anything else to do. I think she took it well. I think I inspired her to try it herself. After all, if a doctor can give it a try, and fail, then that makes her free to try, and fail. Or maybe I just completely drained any confidence she might have ever had to do it herself.

I’m going to add this to the list of things I should never try to do again. Now I know why my wife would never let me cut our babies’ nails. Or maybe if she had, I’d have gotten plenty of practice and could show every new mom how to do it.

Dr. Bob