Infants can breathe and swallow at the same time?

The concept that infants can breathe and swallow simultaneously due to distinct breathing and swallowing channels was propagated primarily by Edmund Crelin and his student, Jeffrey Laitman. Our evaluation of the primary research article that supported this concept found the article to be unconvincing due to numerous misrepresentations of prior data as well as those presented in the article. Despite clear evidence that newborns cannot breathe and swallow simultaneously, Crelin and Laitman continued to support this concept well into the 21st century, which resulted in the concept becoming imbedded in popular literature and the internet, with potentially significant negative clinical consequences. We suggest that a partial explanation why this anatomically and physiologically illogical concept was able to propagate is the paucity of the teaching of newborn anatomy to medical professionals.