I THINK it cannot be safe for a Woman to turn a Child upon ether Occasions requiring it; their Strength, as well as Skill being frequently inferior to the Task; besides, there may be great Danger of injuring the Vitals of the Mother in other Cases, especially after the Operation is unseasonably delay’d.
As each Child has a Navel-string, as well as After-birth belonging to it (tho’ both Placenta’s are sometimes so joined as easily to be distinguished) the Care respecting the Navel-string, already related in the Sixth Chapter, must of Course be taken for the First-born, and its Secundines left, ’till after the Birth of the Second, when both, if necessary, must be separated and brought away, as there advis’d, with Regard to one alone, and the Navel-string of the last Infant tied after the same Manner as in the Birth of one Infant.
CHAPTER XIV. Of a Dead Child.
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DEAD Child is often born with abundantly more Difficulty than a living one, for the last by its Struggles considerably promotes its own Birth; whereas, the first lies immoveably in the same Posture, without changing Situation by its own Activity.
When the Death of the Child proceeds from any accidental Injury, the breeding Woman commonly knows it, by the Perception of a Weight within her, in the Part where it lies, instead of its usual Motions, which from that Time cease, and occasion, not without Reason, a Solicitude for the best Assistance.
One of my Neighbours, whom I lately deliver’d, had the Misfortune to fall flat on her Face, between the 7th and 8th Month of her Pregnancy; from which Time to that of her Labour, above three Weeks after, she had a continual Sensation of a Weight within her, without any of the Child’s Motions, as before this Accident, although it was not succeeded by a Flooding, as is common upon a partial or total Separation of the Placenta: She had frequently been attacked with Pains resembling Travil, for above two Weeks before it came on effectually; in this Case after I had brought the Child by turning, I found the Secundines extremely offensive, by Reason of their Putrefaction.
From Causes less manifest, ’tis a Thing more precarious to judge of the Infant’s Death; the Woman in Travil has not perceived the Motion of the Child for some Days, while it was yet living; a cadacerous Smell is not infallible; the coming away of the Child’s Excrement, may proceed from the Compression of its Abdomen in the Birth, especially when the Buttocks present; these Appearances therefore can only be a Foundation at best for probable Conjecture; nothing short of the Peeling of the Cuticle or Scarf-Skin of the Child upon Touching it, can be a certain Token of its Death.
CHAPTER XV. The necessary Care of a Mother and Child.
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