Why you should never kiss a baby

By Primrose Freestone, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Microbiology, University of Leicester

There is a cognitive bias called “the curse of knowledge” (sometimes also called “the curse of expertise”). It happens when you incorrectly assume that everyone knows as much as you do on a given topic. As a clinical microbiologist, I assumed everyone knew that it was a terrible idea to kiss a newborn baby anywhere on its head.

Dr Karan Raj, an NHS surgeon, recently made a TikTok warning people of the dangers of kissing a baby and judging by the thousands of comments, this was news to many on the…

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