It seems like just yesterday, people were complaining when the price of a dozen eggs spiked to record levels. Now, parents are literally cracking eggs on their kids' heads.
Yes -- you read that right.
The latest viral TikTok challenge has parents filming themselves cracking an egg on their young kids' heads.
The videos typically show an adult taking a raw egg and cracking it on a child's head before putting it into a bowl.
While the reactions from the children vary, many are seen crying or looking upset and stunned.
The hashtag #eggprank had more than 674 million views as of Wednesday. Another hashtag, #eggcrackchallenge, had nearly 64 million views.
Comments on the videos appear to be split, with some concerned the prank could humiliate the child and leave them feeling tricked and untrusting of their parents.
Several medical experts told NBC News that while they don't think the parents in the videos seem malicious, the prank could have unintended short-term effects, including bruising a child's head or spreading germs from the egg.
"This is not something that benefits kids in any way, and I honestly don't find it entertaining," Dr. Meghan Martin, a pediatric emergency medical physician at Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital, told NBC. "We're literally smacking salmonella on their foreheads. It's harder to get a toddler to drink fluids when they’ve got a stomach bug or food poisoning, and so they’re more likely to end up in the hospital for IV fluids."
Amanda Mathers, a pediatric occupational therapist, told the network she cracked an egg on her own head just to see how hard the impact was -- and it hurt.
"These toddler brains are developing and they are like sponges, you know, so they are just taking in everything that's happening in their environment,” she said. "And to think that they're witnessing their parents, purposely, you know, harm them … it was really shocking for me to see."
Dr. Don Grant, national adviser for Healthy Device Management of Newport Healthcare, told Fox News that parents may think it's just lighthearted fun, but they're risking their child's trust for likes.
"Tricks are not for kids," he said, adding that parents should consider what their motivation is for posting such a video. "As a parent, our job is to protect our children from the world. Our job is to buffer them and as a parent, for the sake of a video, I don’t see a gain versus the risk of this. Why would you as a parent put yourself in a situation where you're risking your child to [become] untrusting, shocked, surprised or shed a tear?"
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