CHAPTER XIV. Of a Dead Child.
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.