WEIGHT AND LENGTH OF NEW-BORN CHILDREN
The average weight of infants of both sexes at the time of birth is about seven pounds. The average of male children is seven and one-third pounds; of female, six and two-thirds pounds. Children which at full term weigh less than five pounds are not apt to thrive, and usually die in a short time.
The average length at birth, without regard to sex, is about twenty inches, the male being about half an inch longer than the female.
In regard to the relation between the size of the child and the age of the mother, the interesting conclusion has been arrived at, that the average weight and length of the mature child gradually increases with the age of the mother up to the twenty-fifth year. Mothers between the ages of twenty-five and twenty-nine have the largest children. From the thirtieth year they gradually diminish. The first child of a woman is of comparatively light weight. The first egg of a fowl is smaller than those which follow.
The new-born children in our Western States seem to be larger than the statistics show them to be in the various States of Europe, and apparently even than in our Eastern States. In the Report on Obstetrics of the Illinois State Medical Society for 1868, it is stated that Quincy, Ill., produced during the year six male children whose average weight at birth was thirteen and a quarter pounds, the smallest weighing twelve pounds, and the largest seventeen and a half, which was born at the end of four hours' labor, without instrumental or other interference. A recent number of a Western medical journal reports the birth at Detroit, in February last, of a well-formed male infant twenty-four and a-half inches long, weighing sixteen pounds. The woman's weight, after labor, is stated as only ninety-two pounds. An English physician delivered a child by the forceps which weighed seventeen pounds twelve ounces, and measured twenty-four inches. These are the largest well-authenticated new-born infants on record.
DURATION OF LABOR.
The length of a natural labor may be said to vary between two and eighteen hours. The intervals between the pains are such, however, that the actual duration of suffering, even in the longest labor, is comparatively very short. The first confinement is much longer than subsequent ones.
The sex of the child has some influence on the duration of labor. According to Dr. Collins of the Lying-in Hospital of Dublin, the average with male births is one hour and four minutes longer than with female. The weight of the child also affects the time of labor. Children weighing over eight pounds average four hours and eight minutes longer in birth than those of less than eight pounds weight.
STILL-BIRTHS.
The statistics of nearly fifty thousand deliveries which occurred at the Royal Maternity Charity, London, show a percentage of nearly five still-born, or one in twenty-seven.