The mother would give birth, the doctor or midwife would cut off the umbilical board, and the father would rush the baby to the bath, typically a small, metal tub barely larger than the baby. The baby gets dunked, dried off (I presume) and returned to Mama.
A few weeks afterwards, the baby would be formally baptized at a church, but this was just for ceremony. It's kind of like getting married in a courthouse and having the wedding later.
This bizarre relay race from belly to bucket took less than 30 seconds. Now, I'm sure not even the most scatter-brained person would forget to remove the baby when he threw out the bath water. But the process was so rushed and stressful, it gave birth to the phrase.
I think the way most people use the saying is different from its original meaning. I used to assume that when someone said, "Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater," the person meant "Don't discount the entire argument because there is a part of it that you don't like." But its original meaning is, essentially, "Don't panic."
Here's some more background about the old practice. Obviously, a priest couldn't be there to bless the water for every birth. Besides the practical issues of the number of priests versus the number of babies, and not knowing the exact day that the woman would give birth, only a few people could afford to have a priest. The priests didn't sell their services, per say. The church wasn't crass. But if you wanted your baby to have the super deluxe car wash instead of the regular, the family would have to ask the priest move in a few weeks early, typically right after the 8th month, in case of an early birth.
While the priest was staying with the family, the custom was for the priest to be treated royally. He would get the best bed, the warmest blankest, the finest foods, and so on. This is the guy in charge for their child's entire life (and afterlife). And if you lived in some dingy stick stack, you wouldn't even think of asking a priest to stay with you. It would be like asking Oprah Winfrey to stay in a college dorm room.
Few people could afford the status of a personal priest. But getting a baby baptized was more important than a tetanus shot, especially since they didn't have tetanus shots back then. The workaround was for a priest to stop by the expectant parents' home and "pre-bless" the water. It wasn't great, but it was good enough.
Pre-blessing water caused its own problem. In hindsight, sticking a newborn baby with a weak immune system into stagnant water swarming with bacteria after three weeks wasn't the best thing to do. In fact, sticking a baby into anything right after she is born isn't a good thing to do. These are the two reasons why, around the time when people discovered the novel concept of germs, Baptists switched in flocks from the when to the how, a formal ceremony several days after the baby is born.
***
Okay, I made it all up. It started off as a two-second joke for something else I'm writing and morphed into this. I didn't know the etymology of the phrase when I wrote this, but the story seemed so familiar that I half-convinced myself I learned the phrase's history years ago and was remembering it without knowing I was doing so.
Unfortunately, I'm nowhere close. Here's the real etymology (from scopes.com).
Although the admonition against throwing the baby out with the bathwater dates back to the 16th century, its roots are Germanic, not English. Its first written occurrence was in Thomas Murner's 1512 versified satirical book Narrenbeschwörung, and its meaning is purely metaphorical. (In simpler terms, no babies, no bathwater, just a memorable mental image meant to drive home a bit of advice against overreaction.)
Reality is so boring.
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