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Every nurse has at least one superstition… being afraid of the “Q” word is practically a given! We know patients are bound to be superstitious, too, so we asked our Facebook fans about the strangest patient superstition they’ve ever heard or seen. You’ll get a chuckle out of their funny responses!
I had a patient who swore that if she went into the heat, her breast milk would spoil if she stayed out there too long. Yes, people…the breast milk still inside her breasts!
—Catherine Zimmermann Roark
A home-care patient couldn’t sleep in her new hospital bed until the moon was in a certain position.
—Mary McMaster Maxwell
I have a patient who is “allergic” to lots of medications. When we give her a med, she has to hold it in front of her. Then, if she falls toward it, it’s okay. If she falls away from it, she is “allergic.”
—Ken Melissa Wright
I had an obstetrical patient 25 years ago who would not raise her arms above her head, stating, “It will cause the umbilical cord to wrap around the baby’s neck and he will hang himself!” She did not raise her arms for the entire pregnancy….
—Chris Fuller
I had a friend who did not wash her hair for her entire pregnancy because she believed that if she bent forward, the baby would flip over and get brain damage.
—Sara Staton
I can remember an OB rotation where the new dad requested the new mother’s afterbirth to take home and make a soup with….
—Lenice Powell
I had a patient request salt packets, which she used to make a salt paste and rub on her achy legs to “draw” the pain out. She swore by that remedy.
—LaDonne C. Davis- Felton
I had a patient who always said “BFDF” (“Benadryl/flush, Dilaudid/flush”), or the “stuff wouldn’t work.”
—Lisa Webb
What’s the strangest patient superstition you’ve ever heard or seen?
