Birth defect

“ Is it conceivable to any rational human being, that a scar, or what not, on the mother's body can be dissolved in her blood, pass through the placenta into the child's circulation, and then gather itself together into a definite scar on the infant's arm?
There is just as much reason to expect the child to grow to resemble the cow on whose milk it is fed after birth, as to expect it to grow to resemble its mother, because of prenatal influence, as the term is customarily used, for once development has begun, the child draws nothing more than nourishment from its mother. ”

“ Such, for instance, are imperfect and vicious developments of internal organs existing when born. These malformations often result from inflammation while in the womb, excited by some taint of the mother's blood, or by some agitation of her nervous system. Means of prevention in those cases are therefore to be directed to the mother, in the manner indicated in treating of pregnancy. But other causes of death begin to act only after birth, and are to a greater or less extent avoidable. ”

“ The ordinary [Pg 146] treatment of women in child-bed is irrational, indefensible, and most preposterously foolish. Nothing can be more absurd. Childbirth is not a disease! It is simply the performance of a natural function, like eating, drinking, &c., yet we treat it as though it were some formidable and dangerous malady. Dr. Conquest, a London accoucheur of repute, says—‘Child-birth is that natural process by which the womb expels its contents, and returns to the condition in which it was previously. ”

“ A WRONG TO THE MOTHER AND CHILD.—Sometimes the mother is diseased; the outlet from the womb, as a result of laceration by a previous child-birth, is frequently enlarged, thus allowing conception to take place very readily, and hence she has children in rapid succession. Besides the wrong to the mother in having children in such rapid succession, it is a great injustice to the babe in the womb and the one at the breast that they should follow each other so quickly that one is conceived while the other is nursing. ”

“ But it is not everything for the mother to nourish with her blood the brain and the cranium of the child; it is also necessary for this relatively large head to pass through the pelvis at the time of childbirth, and we know that this moment is the most dangerous for the life of the pregnant woman. As boys have on the average a larger brain and cranium than those of girls, their birth is usually more difficult.
[60] Accouchement.—The sexual organs of woman undergo great changes in order to render childbirth possible. ”

“ Perhaps the root of the difficulty lies in the fact that childbirth, as well as the attendant suffering and death, are so familiar that they are regarded as being normal incidents in the ordinary course of affairs.
One of the most dramatic of all human events, the birth of a new being, is accepted casually, almost without concern, because it is so frequent—so commonplace. ”

“ Where the female cannot be in a state of pregnancy without the most intense and excruciating suffering during such period, endangering her own future health, and perhaps that of her offspring.
Where an incapacity exists to give birth 108to living children, either in consequence of malformation of the pelvis, or other deformity; and where, from the same, or other causes, recourse is necessarily had to the Cæsarean operation. All which causes have either the health or the life of the female in view. ”

“ In other words, it seems possible that under very unusual conditions the mother may affect her unborn child because of some powerful impression made upon the system.
Yet hundreds of thousands of mothers become frightened and undergo the most terrible experiences without having the slightest unfavorable effect upon the child; while other mothers give birth to deformed children when they have been surrounded with every comfort and have not been disturbed in any way. ”

“ The mother is more liable to suffer under diseases of the womb after long than after short labors. [Pg 362] The child for some time after birth is more liable to disease and death, in proportion as the labor has been longer in its duration. First labors are longer in duration than subsequent ones, and in a proportionate degree more complicated and dangerous to mother and child. Male births are longer in duration than female births, and in a proportionate degree more complicated and dangerous to mother and child. ”

“ If, at any time during pregnancy, any thing has attracted her attention, or strongly impressed the mind, which bears any resemblance or similitude to the mark, spot, blemish, or malformation of the child, it is at once put down as the certain cause of the defect. In this way these absurd apprehensions are often made to take so deep a hold upon the mind of pregnant females, that no expostulation or ridicule of the physician, or other friend, can entirely subdue them ”

“ The organisation of a morbid predisposition may be largely influenced by an accident accompanying conception or gestation. In some degenerates cannot be found a trace of hereditary defect. The fact cited explains how sensorial excitations or repeated and violent emotions in the mother during [Pg 57] pregnancy give rise to profound nutritive troubles in the fœtus, and especially in its nervous system. These congenitally degenerated beings (ab utero) can hardly be distinguished from those having direct heredity. ”

“ There has always been a great deal of popular interest attached to the malformations owing to the part which maternal impressions are supposed to play in their production. In this, some striking impression made on the pregnant woman is supposed to affect in a definite way the structure of the child. The cases, for instance, in which a woman sees an accident involving a wound or a loss of an arm and the child at birth shows a malformation involving the same part. ”

“ The little baby girl who has rickety bones (which result from being improperly fed as an infant) is, in extreme cases certain, and in many cases very likely, to have such contracted pelvic bones that when her turn comes for motherhood, the birth of a living child may be impossible by the ordinary processes of Nature. Here again, as so often is inevitable, in the course of any consideration of the profound truths of mated existence, we impinge upon the treatment of the unsound and the diseased. ”

“ As a variety of the third kind of sterility, sterility due to incapacity for implantation or further development of the ovum, must be classed the cases in which, though conception and implantation of the ovum are known to occur, and the first stages of development of the embryo certainly take place, the woman proves incapable of giving birth to a viable infant. ”

“ It is not often enough remembered that bearing children, though a natural process, is hazardous, not only in its immediate dangers but to the future health of the woman. Injuries to the internal and external parts occur with almost every first birth, especially if that birth occurs after twenty-five years of age. ”

“ So a deficient mother not only shows certain structural evidence of physiological degeneration, but she makes deficient babies. A deficient female baby at birth is unlikely to completely overcome her bad start before she herself has children.
So with females, the quality of a whole lifetime's nutrition, and the life-nutrition of her mother (and of her mother's mother as well) has a great deal to do with the outcome of a pregnancy. The sins of the mother can really be visited unto the third and fourth generation. ”

“ Some women have one child and are unable afterwards to give birth to any more. Such a condition is called one-child-sterility. It is generally due to an inflammation of the Fallopian tubes which closes up the openings of the tubes into the womb, so that no more ova can pass from the ovaries through the tubes into the womb. This inflammation may be the result of childbirth, for childbirth alone may set up an inflammation, or it may be due to an infection contracted from the husband. ”

“ If life is not destroyed, the nutritional processes may be so affected that the pregnancy will result in the birth of a defective child. These children, perhaps fortunately, usually die during the first few months of their lives. Seldom do they live to maturity. Many children who seem to have escaped this inherited trait really have not done so, but their inheritance is not recognized. Some people with defective generative organs owe this to a diseased parent. ”

“ We have also tissue changes occurring, not perhaps yet thoroughly understood, but leading to ruptures in the ovary, and to exfoliation of the uterine lining membrane, a kind of modified abortion, in fact. 92These changes in most instances are accompanied by signs of pain and discomfort, which, if they were not periodic and physiological, would be considered as symptoms of disease.”
(The italics are not in the original.) Here is certainly cogent evidence of “abnormal fruit of birth,” and the learned doctor seems to be on the verge of making the involuntary discovery. ”

“ It is said that the dissemination of venereal diseases has caused an increase of sterility; that luxurious living lowers fecundity, and so on. It is impossible to take the time to analyze the many explanations of this sort which have been offered, and which are familiar to the reader; we must content ourselves with saying that evidence of a great many kinds, largely statistical and, in our opinion, reliable, indicates that physiological causes play a minor part in the decrease of the birth-rate. ”

“ A TEXT BOOK OF OBSTETRICS. Barton Cooke Hirst, M.D., Professor of Obstetrics in the University of Penn.; Gynecologist to the Howard, the Orthopaedic and the Phil. Hospitals, etc. 7th Edition. W. B. Saunders Co., Phil, and London, 1912.
The effect of chronic diseases of the mother upon the fetus. Women affected with tuberculosis, cancer, or chronic malarial poisons may give birth to a succession of dead children. ”

“ The due term of labor is past and as a consequence fetuses grow too large within the uterus, greatly increasing the difficulties of parturition and adding to the risk of both mother and child. It is the custom to announce with pride the birth of twelve- and fifteen-pound babies, but it is doubtful whether nature intended that growth to this extent should take place before birth. ”

“ Public opinion commonly puts the blame on the woman for being childless, and only in exceptional 123cases considers the possibility of the man being responsible for it. How unjust and how far from the truth! The inability to bear children, medically known as sterility, in a very large number of cases, at least half, is directly or indirectly due to a man’s disease or an inborn defect. ”

“ Most married women whose health is broken down by some disease peculiar to their sex refer the commencement of their suffering to a confinement or premature birth. The large majority of those women whose health is affected, because of some "female weakness," suffer from a displacement, or malposition of the internal organs, and as this condition is most frequently a product of maternity, there would seem to be some reasonable degree of justification for the assumption that the wrecked health is the result of a legitimate physiological act, and consequently a natural phenomenon. ”

“ Physicians and their scientific colleagues have regarded that event with less interest and have tended to focus either upon conception, upon live birth, or upon the interim point at which the fetus becomes "viable," that is, potentially able to live outside the mothers womb, albeit with artificial aid. ”

“ The usual type of history given is that after the mother has seen the defect in the newly-born infant, she looks back over the preceding nine months to see if there were any apparent cause for the trouble, and seeking out particularly some shock or fright produced by seeing something resembling the defect in her infant often selects something trivial and irrelevant. ”

“ It appears to be due to something which interferes with prenatal development. Whatever the conditions, whether lack of nutrition in the mother, alcoholic or other poisoning, the cases seem to be as hopelessly incurable as are the hereditary forms. From the social standpoint, of course, such individuals are in their immediate generation, as incompetent or as dangerous to society as those suffering from the more surely known hereditary forms of mental defect. ”

“ The effects upon the fetus of intoxications, such as plumbism, alcoholism, etc., may be avoided. The production of syphilitic offspring may be restricted, and our knowledge of the later effects upon the fetus of certain diseases, or pathologic states of one or both parents may be utilized toward the bringing into existence of progeny under such conditions as to escape such evils. Our knowledge of heredity, of morbid conditions and predispositions should also be brought to bear upon the question of marriage and fitness to produce 230healthy children. ”

“ The disturbance of uterine existence between conception and birth is that which has engaged most attention, and the fact that such disturbances can take place requires that the expectant mother should be protected from anything that can so act on her own organism as to prevent the due operation of the law of heredity. ”

“ Not only do women become sterile in consequence of a miscarriage, and then, longing for offspring, find themselves permanently incapacitated for conception, but, in other cases, impregnation, or rather the attachment of the ovum to the uterus, being but imperfectly effected, or the mother's system being so insidiously undermined, the children that are subsequently brought forth are unhealthy, deformed, or diseased. ”