Such unscientific and unwarranted teaching has been handed down from mother to daughter through the ages, while the poor, misguided souls of expectant women have suffered untold remorse, heaped blame upon themselves, lived lives literally cursed with fear and dread—veritable slaves to superstition and bondage—all because of the simple fact that a certain percentage of all children born in this world have sustained some sort of an injury or "embryological accident" during the first days of fetal existence. For instance, take the common birthmark of a patch of reddened skin on the face, brow, or neck. As soon as the baby is born, the worried mother asks in anxious tones: "Doctor, is it all right, is it perfect, has it got any birthmarks?" On being told that the baby has a round, red patch on its left brow, the ever-ready statement of the mother comes forth: "Yes, I knew I'd mark it, I was picking berries one day about three months ago, and I ate and ate, until I suddenly remembered I might mark my baby, and before I knew what I was doing, I touched my brow and I just knew I had marked my baby." Do you know, reader, that that birthmark was present fully four months before she passed through that experience in the berry patch? And yet so worried and apprehensive has been the pregnant mother, that, although she can never successfully predict the "birthmarks" and blemishes of her child, nevertheless when these defects are disclosed at birth she is unfailingly able immediately to recall some extraordinary experience which she has carefully stored away in her memory and which, to her mind, most fully explains and accounts for the defect.
Is it much wonder that in the very early days of embryonic existence, during the hours of delicate cell division, indentation, outpushing, elongation, and sliding of young cells—is it much wonder, I repeat—that there occur a few malformations, blemishes, or other accidents which persist as "birthmarks?"
CAUSES OF BIRTHMARKS
There are many factors which may enter into the production of birth-blemishes, deformities, monstrosities, etc. These influences are all governed by certain definite laws of cause and effect. A pre-existent systemic disease in the father, or a coexistent disorder in the mother, may be a leading factor. A mechanical injury, such as a sudden fall, a blow, or a kick, or certain kinds of prolonged pressure, not to mention restrictions and contractions of the maternal bony structures, may all possibly contribute something to these prenatal miscarriages of growth and development. Maternal or prenatal embryonic infections could bring about many sorts of birthmarks and malformations. These defects might also be caused by certain types of severe inflammatory disorders in the uterus during the early days of pregnancy.
The same factors that produce the accidents of embryology resulting in malformations or monstrosities in the human family, are also operative in the case of our lesser brethren of the animal kingdom, for monstrosities and birth-defects are very common among the lower animals, notwithstanding the fact that the animal mother probably does not "believe in birthmarks."
"It is a striking fact that during the nineteenth century, the teratologists, those who have scientifically investigated the causes of monstrosities and fetal morbid states, have almost without exception, rejected the theory of maternal impressions." Scientists and physicians are coming to recognize the fact that fears and frights do not in any way act as causes in the production of monstrosities and deformities. Let us seek forever to liberate all womankind from the common and harassing fear and the definite dread and worry that, because they failed to control themselves at the instant of some terrifying sight or experience, they were directly responsible for the misfortune of their abnormal offspring.
It should be remembered that there exists no direct connection whatsoever between the nervous system of the unborn child and the nervous system of the mother. The only physiological or embryological relationship is of a nutritional order, and even that is indirect and remote.
ROLE OF THE PLACENTA
By the end of the third month, the "cocoon" attachment described in chapter two has disappeared; the fetus is slowly pushed away from the uterus which has so snugly held it for more than eleven weeks; while upon the exact site of its previous attachment the thickened uterine membrane undergoes a very interesting and important change—definite blood vessels begin to form—which begin indirectly to form contact with the maternal vessels, and thus it is that the placenta, or "after birth" is formed; and then, by means of the umbilical cord, nourishment from the mother's blood-stream is carried to the growing and rapidly developing child. In exchange for the nourishing stream of life-giving fluid by which growth and development take place, the embryo gives off its poisonous excretions which are carried back to the placenta, from which they are absorbed into the veinous circulation of the mother; so, while the mother does, through the process of nutrition, influence growth and development in the embryo, she is wholly unable to produce specific changes and such definite developmental errors as birthmarks and other deformities.
Just as truly as it would be impossible so to frighten a setting hen as to "mark" or otherwise influence the form or character of the chicks which would ultimately come forth from the eggs in her nest, it is just as truly impossible to frighten the pregnant mother and thereby influence the final developmental product of the human egg which is so securely tucked away in its uterine nest; for, when conception has occurred, the human embryo is just as truly an egg—fashioned and formed—as is the larger and shell-contained embryo of the chick which lies in the nest of the setting hen.