A Treatise on the Art of Midwifery: Setting Forth Various Abuses Therein, Especially as to the Practice With Instruments: the Whole Serving to Put All Rational Inquirers in a Fair Way of Very Safely Forming Their Own Judgement Upon the Question; Which It Is Best to Employ, in Cases of Pregnancy and Lying-in, a Man-midwife; Or, a MidwifeNihell, Elizabeth
History
A Treatise on the Art of Midwifery: Setting Forth Various Abuses Therein, Especially as to the Practice With Instruments: the Whole Serving to Put All Rational Inquirers in a Fair Way of Very Safely Forming Their Own Judgement Upon the Question; Which It Is Best to Employ, in Cases of Pregnancy and Lying-in, a Man-midwife; Or, a Midwife
Nihell, Elizabeth
Midwifery -- Early works to 1800; Obstetrics -- Early works to 1800
MAURICEAU explains this case tolerably justly, where he treats of the
footling-extraction.
“CARE (says he) should be taken that the child should have its face and
belly directly downwards; to prevent, on their being turned upwards, the
head of it being, towards the chin, stopped by the os pubis. If
therefore it should not be so turned, it must be put into that posture.
This will easily be done if, as soon as you begin drawing the child out
by the feet, you incline and turn it little by little, in proportion as
your extraction of it proceeds, till its heels bear in a direct line
with the belly of the mother,”
[_Here I must beg leave to interrupt Mr. Mauriceau, to observe, that it
is not enough to have hold of the child’s feet to begin turning it: but
the breech must have come out: then, if it is not well turned, by
placing one hand on the belly, and the other on the breech of the child,
there will be time enough easily to turn it immediately and naturally,
neither with too much precipitation, nor yet too leisurely, not little
by little, or by slow degrees. This last precaution being of no use but
to flag an operation, in which a delay may be fatal to the child,
without any service to the mother, it only keeping her the longer in
pain._]
“THERE are (he goes on) however children with so large a head, that it
remains stopped in the passage after the body is intirely got out,
notwithstanding all the precautions that can be used to avoid it. In
this case, you must not stand amusing yourself with so much as
attempting to bring the child away by the shoulders, for sometimes you
will sooner part the body from the neck, than get the child out by this
means. But while some other person shall pull it by the two feet or
beneath the knees,” [_here Monsieur Mauriceau is much out: great care
should be taken not to have it pulled by any one, but purely to give the
body of the child to be supported by some discret person, while the
delivery proceeds as the author goes on to describe_] “the operator will
disingage little by little the head from between the bones of the
passage, which he may do by sliding softly one or two fingers of his
left hand into the mouth of the child, to disingage the chin in the
first place, and with his right hand, he will embrace the back of the
child’s neck, above the shoulders, to draw it afterwards, with the help
of one of the fingers of his left hand, employed, as I have just
observed, in disingaging the chin. For it is this part which the most
contributes to detain the head in the passage, whence it cannot be drawn
out before the chin shall have been intirely disingaged. Observe also,
that this is to be done with all possible dispatch for fear the child
should be suffocated, as would indubitably happen, were he to remain any
time thus held and stopped: because the umbilical chord, which will have
come out, being turned cold, and strongly compressed by the body or by
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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