Help! Baby just ate small amount of soap!

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Poor dear. Well, you know the drill- just try to really be careful of where things are. My daughter was FAST when she started moving around. She's showing her age now (she's 7 and completely tired when I pick her up from camp). I hope he feels better. :)
 
I would do a quick zap test where the baby bit the soap to make sure there's no active lye left. If it's negative, all should be good. I'd also try to rinse out baby's mouth using your wet finger. I don't know how old the baby is or what the baby's diet is, but can you increase fluids a bit? You may also notice loose stools/diarrhea so check the diaper often for the next day or 2. Poor little guy. And poor stressed out mom!
 
Poison control also says he'll be fine. He's calmed down and I'm breathing again. Whew.

He's 10 months and almost walking. Way too fast and curious for his own good!

I turned the soap and left some crumbs on the counter. He reached up when I wasn't looking... Bubbles and tears. Did give him some water.

Thanks!
 
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Couldn't tell if the soap zapped or not. I tasted a crumb like what he got. It sure tastes terrible. Not tingly exactly... I've never tasted a battery.
 
Couldn't tell if the soap zapped or not. I tasted a crumb like what he got. It sure tastes terrible. Not tingly exactly... I've never tasted a battery.

Zap isn't a taste, it's a feeling. Since you didn't get it, it didn't zap. Terrible is basically how soap tastes. I hope he learned his lesson to keep the soap away from his mouth for both your sakes!
 
When my granddaughter was 2 she took a big bite out of one of her mom's m&p cupcake soap. LOL, all she said was, "YUCK SOAP". A couple of days later I made her real cupcakes and she was very leary of trying one, until I took a bite! We had a mom open a sample promotion box, while she was driving, which contained one of our marshmallow soaps. She promptly handed it back to her son in his car seat and he ate it. He treated her with regurgitating it on the back of her seat. This woman called us yelling and we told her to read the label that was printed with Do Not Eat. All he got out of it was a tummy ache
 
My honorary nephew Will liked to eat my soap. The recipe I generally use doesn't taste bad ... just bland ... but some soap does have a bad taste. I'm not sure why he wanted to eat it, because it sure wasn't especially tasty to eat, but he did. I learned to felt the soap before giving it to him and that fixed his little red wagon. :)
 
My honorary nephew Will liked to eat my soap. The recipe I generally use doesn't taste bad ... just bland ... but some soap does have a bad taste. I'm not sure why he wanted to eat it, because it sure wasn't especially tasty to eat, but he did. I learned to felt the soap before giving it to him and that fixed his little red wagon. :)

Maybe it was pica? I remember I used to love me some playdoh and also baking soda toothpaste.
 
Carolyn, that's hilarious!
DeeAnna, felted soap sounds neat. Does the felt stay intact like a sack as the soap gets used up or does it wear away? Do you have to use wool?
 
I know that you feel much better after speaking to poison control. He may have a little diarrhea, depending on the amount of soap the ingested.
 
I know that you feel much better after speaking to poison control. He may have a little diarrhea, depending on the amount of soap the ingested.

Yeah, but I wasn't sure what the hazard difference was with semi-fresh diy soap versus what most people are likely to be more familiar with. Couldn't tell how much the poison control operative knew. Very glad to have such quick and supportive replies from the lovely people here!

When I was very little I apparently drank some Dawn. I think the treatment was water and time, and yes there was diarrhea.
 
We had a mom open a sample promotion box, while she was driving, which contained one of our marshmallow soaps. She promptly handed it back to her son in his car seat and he ate it. He treated her with regurgitating it on the back of her seat. This woman called us yelling and we told her to read the label that was printed with Do Not Eat. All he got out of it was a tummy ache

Ya can't fix stupid. You can only hope it doesn't breed. Oh, wait. Too late. :think:


Milky: poor little tyke will be farting bubbles any minute now... :oops:
 
Pharmacists used to make their own pills. The material used to make things stick together was ... you guessed it ... soap. Not sure if that makes you feel better, but I thought it can't hurt to know that.

The felt shrinks down somewhat as the soap is used. When the soap is all gone, you can cut a slit in the felt and have a little pouch for treasures and stuff. To make felt, you have to choose fibers that can interlock and form a mat. Most vegetable fibers like flax, cotton, and silk won't felt, but many animal fibers do because of the little scales on the fibers that want to interlock and tangle together. Wool works well, but it's possible to felt alpaca, llama, mohair, rabbit, horse body hair (tail and mane hair don't work), dog hair, etc. Even human hair will felt although not nearly as well as wool -- curly type hair works best.
 
Woah, that's cool! Where can I read about pharmacists making "soap pills?" Wonder if that is worth revival for an herbal medic sort of situation..

Also, I'm really very tempted to try felting soap with cat hair. No shortage of that around here. Might try goat hair too though they aren't a fiber breed. :)
 
People felt angora goat and rabbit hair, but some kinds of hair don't give a very happy result no matter what you do. In other cases, a fiber that won't felt to itself can be blended with sheep wool and then you can get a good result. For example, I know that horse tail hair just doesn't felt well at all -- it's so smooth, wiry, and coarse that it would rather work its way out of a felt than stay put. But horse body hair will felt. Cat and fluffy dog hair will felt, although the smooth, wiry hairs from some dogs won't felt well -- the guard hair from my collie won't felt, but her downy under-hair will. If your goat hair has any kind of wave or curl to it, it may felt okay. The finer it is, the better.

***

As far as soap being used to make pills or as medicine itself ... to be honest I don't think that has been much in favor for a long time, but it was done. I know it's not been all that long ago that I read about using soap to make pills, but I can't dredge up the reference. My guess it is in one of the pharmacist formularies I've got and there are always a bazillion references to soap to wade through.

But here are a few tidbits that relate.

First, a recipe for a "physic" meant to be taken internally. It comes from a pharmacist's journal from 1901, but this is the only soap-related item I could find in this journal that was meant to be taken internally. The same journal has tons of recipes that use soap in all sorts of everyday products including shoe polish, harness blacking, floor wax, cold cream, tooth pastes, perfumes, hair pomades, etc. and of course soaps for washing the body. So you can see the idea of soap as internal remedy wasn't too popular any more.

PHYSIC-BALL.
Barbadoes aloes 4 drs. (dram)
Powdered soap 1 dr.
Oil of caraway 15 m. (minim)
Enclose in a capsule.

And here are a couple of old treatises from the 1700s that attribute amazing properties to soap taken as medicine. These examples describe how soap apparently dissolved what I think were kidney stones --

A Letter from Mr. Rob. Lucas, concerning the Relief He Found in the Stone from the Use of Alicant Soap and Lime-Water, to His Brother the Rev. Mr. Richard Lucas F.R.S. 1753. https://archive.org/details/philtrans06843489

An Account of the Virtues of Soap in Dissolving the Stone, in the Case of the Rev. Mr. Matthew Simson. Communicated by John Pringle, M.D. F.R.S. 1757. https://archive.org/details/jstor-105252
 
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