The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother

by George H. Napheys

In leaving the subject of maternal impressions, we will call attention to the manifest difference in extent and degree between the influence of the father and that of the mother over the offspring. That of the father ceases with impregnation. That of the mother continues during the whole term of pregnancy, and, as we shall shortly see, even during that of nursing.

EDUCATION OF THE CHILD IN THE WOMB.

The outlines drawn by the artist Flaxman are esteemed the most perfect and graceful in existence. From earliest childhood he manifested a delight in drawing. His mother, a woman of refined and artistic tastes, used to relate that for months previous to his birth she spent hours daily studying engravings, and fixing in her memory the most beautiful proportions of the human figure as portrayed by masters. She was convinced that the genius of her son was the fruit of her own self-culture. What a charming idea is this! What an incentive to those about to become mothers, to cultivate refinement, high thoughts, pure emotions, elevated sentiments! Thus they endow their children with what no after education can give them.

The plastic brain of the fœtus is prompt to receive all impressions. It retains them, and they become the characteristics of the child and the man. Low spirits, violent passions, irritability, frivolity, in the pregnant woman, leave indelible marks on the unborn child. So do their contraries; and thus it becomes of the utmost moment that during this period all that is cheerful, inspiring, and elevating should surround the woman. Such emotions educate the child: they form its disposition, they shape its faculties, they create its mental and intellectual traits. Of all education, this is the most momentous.

CAN A WOMAN BECOME AGAIN PREGNANT DURING PREGNANCY?

Can a woman during pregnancy conceive, and add a second and younger child to that already in the womb?

It is not uncommon in the canine race for a mother to give birth at the same time to dogs of different species, showing conclusively the possibility, in these animals, of one conception closely following another. So a mare has been known to produce within a quarter of an hour, first a horse, and then a mule. And in the human race cases are on record in which women have had twins, of which the one was white and the other colored, in consequence of intercourse on the same day with men of those two races. Dr. Henry relates that in Brazil a Creole woman, a native, brought into the world at one birth three children of three different colors,—white, brown, and black,—each child exhibiting the features peculiar to the respective races.

In all such instances the two conceptions followed each other very rapidly, the offspring arriving at maturity together, and being born at the same accouchement. But more curious and wonderful examples of second and concurrent pregnancies have been published than these—as, for instance, those in which a child bearing all the attributes of a fœtus at full term is born two, three, four, and even five, months after the first, which appeared also to have been born at full term. Marie Anne Bigaud, aged thirty-seven, gave birth, April 30, 1748, to a living boy at full term, and on the ensuing September 16, to a living girl, which was recognised, by the size and well-developed condition of its body and limbs, to have been also carried until full term. This fact was observed by Professor Eisenman, and by Leriche, surgeon-major of the military hospital of Strasbourg. It will be noticed that there was an interval of four and a half months between the two accouchements. The first child lived two and a half months, and the second a year. In this instance there was not a double womb, as might perhaps be supposed, for after the mother's death an examination proved that the uterus was single.

Another case of this kind is the following:—Benoite Franquet of Lyons brought into the world a girl on January 20, 1780, and five months and six days afterwards a second girl, also apparently at term, and well nourished. Two years later these two children were presented, with their certificates of baptism, to two notaries of Lyons, MM. Caillot and Desurgey, in order that the fact might be placed on record and vouched for, because of its value in legal medicine.

The number of the entirely authenticated cases now known of the birth of fully developed children within from two to five months of each other, can leave no doubt as to the possibility of such an occurrence. The only question which remains is in regard to the periods of conception. Are the two children in such cases twins, conceived at the same time, but the growth of the last-born so retarded that it did not arrive at maturity until a number of months after its fellow? or, Has a second conception taken place at an interval of several months after the first? If this latter view be true, then, in the instance of Marie Anne Bigaud, above related, the second child must have been conceived after the first had quickened. Then, also, two children of different ages, the offspring of different fathers, may exist in the womb at the same time. The weight of scientific observation and authority has now established the fact that, in very rare instances, a second conception may take place during pregnancy. It must not be understood as necessarily following from this statement, that when two children are born at the same time,—one fully developed, and the other small and apparently prematurely born,—the two were conceived at different times. The smaller may have been blighted and its growth hindered by the same causes which bring about such effects in cases of single births of incompletely developed children. A similar supposition may account for the birth of a second child within a month or two after the first, for the first may have been prematurely born, and the second carried to full term. But no such supposition can explain the cases referred to, and others which might be mentioned, in which the interval has been five or six months, each child presenting every indication of perfect maturity. The only explanation possible in such instances, which, as has been said, are well authenticated, although few in number, is, that a second pregnancy has occurred during the first.