The growth of the fetus, as depending upon the mother, is in proportion to the length of time it is destined to remain in the womb.
In the first place, let us endeavor to ascertain the average weight of infants at birth. I do not know that we have any tables in this country that throw light upon the subject. We can, however, go to France, where the industry of physicians has reduced almost every thing connected with the medical art to figures and rules.
At the L’Hospice de la Maternité, in the city of Paris, the following results were ascertained in regard to 7077 cases of births:
| 34 | weighed from | 1 | to | 1½ | pounds. |
| 69 | „ | 2 | „ | 2½ | „ |
| 164 | „ | 3 | „ | 3½ | „ |
| 396 | „ | 4 | „ | 4½ | „ |
| 1317 | „ | 5 | „ | 5½ | „ |
| 2799 | „ | 6 | „ | 6½ | „ |
| 1750 | „ | 7 | „ | 7½ | „ |
| 463 | „ | 8 | „ | 8½ | „ |
| 82 | „ | 9 | „ | 9½ | „ |
| 3 | „ | 10 | „ | 10½ | „ |
The average weight of children, then, at birth, would appear to be only between six and seven pounds. To make our calculation a safe one, we will suppose the average to be seven pounds.
There is also to be taken into the account the placenta, the membranes, and the liquor amnii, with which the child is surrounded. We may, then, make the following calculation:
| Weight of the | fetus, 7 pounds, or | 112 | ounces. |
| „ | placenta and membranes | 16 | „ |
| „ | liquor amnii | 16 | „ |
| In all | 144 | „ |
The number of days in a normal pregnancy is about two hundred and eighty. Reckoning three meals to a day—and some average more than this number—we have eight hundred and forty meals in the period. Now, according to the rule of three, if eight hundred and forty meals are to produce one hundred and forty-four ounces, how much must one meal produce? The answer, in decimals, is one hundred and seventy-one thousandths of an ounce, and a fraction over, or only a little more than one and one half tenths of an ounce at each meal.
You will then at once perceive how absurd it is for a woman to think that she must cram herself with food when she is pregnant, because of the notion that she has two to eat for instead of but one as at other times.
An intelligent and well-meaning lady of this city, Mrs. Pendleton, once put forth a work entitled, “Childbirth Made Easy.” The theory of the book was given on the authority of some English writers; and the purport of it was, that in order to bear and bring forth a child as easily as possible, the mother should live principally on fruit, more particularly toward the close of the period of gestation. The more substantial forms of food, it was contended, went to make too much bone in the fetus, and hence, that if these were avoided, the bones would be smaller and softer, in which case the birth would be the more easy. The work also recommended the water-treatment, and all other good rules of health.