Facts of Birth
In Bogota. Colombia last week, in the midst of a Senate debate on state relief for large families, a Senator uprose to read a telegram just received announcing the birth of seven children, all boys, all living, to Carola and Luis Perez of San Pedro. Some U.S. newsreaders would have been more impressed if they had not just scanned Dr. Palmer Findley's The Story of Childbirth, published last fortnight.* Therein appears a picture of the medieval Italian, Dorothea, her monstrous abdomen supported by a neck-swung hoop, who gave birth to nine babies in her first pregnancy, eleven in her second. Dr. Palmer Findley, 65, is professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Nebraska's College of Medicine, councilor of the American College of Surgeons, onetime president of the American Association of Obstetricians, Gynecologists and Abdominal Surgeons. He weights his book with many a quaint or appalling notion once held about childbirth, admits that posterity may find present-day ideas equally ridiculous. For laywomen & men who want to round out and freshen up their knowledge now, he offers a sound, thoroughgoing outline of modern facts and opinions about birth. Some of them:
P: There is no nerve connection between mother and fetus, hence no known avenue on which the mother's shocks may travel to deform the child. Some deformities (webbed feet, cleft palate, harelip) result from arrested development in the second month of fetal existence, caused by disease or by physical injury to the mother's abdomen; others (birthmarks, extra fingers or toes) result from excessive development, may be hereditary. Zenith of prenatal impression stories is reached by one of paternal shock. A Mr. K.'s first wife had both legs cut off by a train, died. By his second wife Mr. K. sired a child which was born with both legs missing.
P: The pregnant woman should not attempt to ''eat for two." She should gain 15 to 20 lb. during pregnancy, but not more than 25 lb. Fasting will not make the baby smaller. Its size is largely beyond the mother's control, though moderate exercise may help.
P: Labor is divided into three stages. The first begins with pain's onset, ends with the complete opening of the womb's mouth, averages 12 hr. in first pregnancies, 4 hr. thereafter. Second stage ends with the baby's delivery, average, 4 to 6 hr. in first pregnancies, 1 to 4 hr. thereafter. Third stage ends with the expulsion of the afterbirth, should take only a few minutes.
P: Laboring mothers should not plead with their doctors for a completely painless delivery. As yet there is no perfectly safe way to effect that. Chloroform, ether, nitrous oxide (laughing gas) can be used effectively for an hour or two, seldom longer. Pain is caused by uterine contractions to expel the baby. Anesthetics and narcotics inhibit those contractions, also affect the baby's respiration. ''Twilight sleep," which made mothers forget their sufferings by means of doses of morphine and scopolamine, is now generally discredited.
P: Expectant mothers should beware of obstetricians who are too prone to caesarean operations (removal of the baby by abdominal incision). Caesareans are spectacular operations, make surgeons feel proud, but they are dangerous and in 95%, of deliveries a skilled obstetrician need only help Nature.
P: Ten per cent to 17% of all marriages are sterile, and 40% to 50% of sterile marriages are due to gonorrhea in husband or wife, usually both.
P: Not to bear children and probably to be sterilized if contraceptive measures fail are women who have tuberculosis of the lungs, chronic Bright's disease, serious heart disease, certain mental disorders, or have had three caesarean operations.
P: Some estimates of the U.S. abortion rate: one in every five or six pregnancies, half of them criminal; 25 abortions for every 100 live births; 700,000 abortions per year, resulting in death to 15,000 women; 80,000 criminal abortions per year in New York City alone.
P: In the U.S. are 47,000 midwives who deliver 15% of the 2,200,000 babies born each year.
P: It is generally agreed that the U.S. is the unsafest place in the world to have a baby. Some reasons: abortions; faulty technic of physician or nurse, resulting in puerperal infection; lack of sufficient good maternity hospitals; insufficient obstetrical training for the general physician; inadequate prenatal care; prevalence of attempts to shorten labor by use of pituitrin to quicken uterine contractions, application of forceps, turning of the baby, forced dilation of the cervix, caesarean operations.
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.