The Doctor Diaries

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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?�

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.