Hiccups Have a Bizarre Hidden Purpose — And It Starts Before You're Even Born

That annoying 'hic' may be one of the oldest reflexes your body owns.

Everyone has a folk cure for hiccups — a scare, a spoonful of sugar, drinking water upside down. But almost nobody can say what hiccups are actually for.

A hiccup is your diaphragm suddenly contracting, followed by your vocal cords snapping shut. That's the 'hic.' It usually starts when the nerves controlling breathing get irritated — by eating fast, fizzy drinks, or sudden excitement.

Here's the twist: babies hiccup in the womb, long before they breathe air. Some scientists think fetal hiccups help train the breathing muscles and brain connections needed for that first breath.

So an adult hiccup may just be an ancient training program firing at the wrong time. Annoying? Yes. But it might be the echo of how you learned to breathe.