From Mental Floss:

“City apartments can be small and stuffy. And while fresh air is a wonderful, healthful thing for people of all ages, in the late 19th century, the idea of actively ‘airing’ your baby to promote health started cropping up in parenting books.

“The concept was introduced by Dr. Luther Emmett Holt who wrote about ‘airing’ in his 1894 book The Care and Feeding of Children.”

A patent was filed in 1922…

After a patent was filed, the baby cages took off in London in the 1930s. It wasn’t uncommon to see moms airing out their babies in these cages outside their apartment windows – no matter the floor they lived on.

Thankfully, baby cages went out of style…

I hope it’s because moms – and concerned neighbours – saw the dangling cages as a safety issue. One would hope.

Or maybe because just like any fad, it comes and goes quicker than you can learn a new language.