Depending on what types of baby books you read before you bring your little bundle of joy home, you may or not be prepared for one of the most important ways your life will change as a parent. Babies, cute and loveable as they are, have an uncanny and often uncontrollable ability to embarrass the daylights out of their parents (usually in the most inopportune situations and places) so it's best to go ahead and plan now for the best ways to handle these mortifying – although probably humorous much later – predicaments.

It's amazing how much poop a tiny baby can expel, and it often happens in the most public places throughout that first year of life. Dr. Anatoly Belilovsky, a pediatrician in New York who runs the 365-day practice Belilovsky Pediatrics, agrees that diaper messes are often unavoidable with small infants. "With infants, diarrhea if often preceded by crankiness, a bad appetite and rumbling stomach," he says. "If this happens before a planned outing, this may be your baby's way of telling you he or she is feeling bad and perhaps the trip should be avoided."

But sometimes, as in the case of New Albany, Ind., mom Mindy Harrington, leaving the house is unavoidable. While on an airplane flight to visit her husband, Harrington noticed a stench making its way through the airplane and realized it was coming from her daughter, who was under a year old at the time. The mess oozed out of her daughter's diaper and straight into Harrington's lap.

"I had no change of clothes and I didn't have anything but a onesie for her," Harrington says. "I hobbled to the bathroom with no help from the flight attendants and managed to squeeze ourselves into the small compartment. I got her changed and had to just wipe my skirt off the best I could. I had to finish out the flight with the same clothes on."

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