Aristotle's works:: Containing the Master-piece, Directions for Midwives, and Counsel and Advice to Child-bearing Women with Various Useful Remedies
Aristotle · en
I would therefore lay down, as a general rule, that whensoever a child
presents itself wrong to the birth, in what posture soever, from the
shoulders to the feet, it is the best way, and the soonest done, to draw
it out by the feet; and that it is better to search for them, if they do
not present themselves, than to try to put them into their natural
posture, and place the head foremost; for the great endeavours necessary
to be used in turning the child in the womb, do so much weaken both the
mother and the child, that there remains not afterwards strength enough
to commit the operation to the work of nature; for, usually, the woman
hath no more throes or pains fit for labour after she has been so
wrought upon: for which reason it would be difficult, and tedious at
best; and the child by such an operation made very weak, would be in
extreme danger of perishing before it could be born. It is therefore
much better in these cases to bring it away immediately by the feet;
searching for them, as I have already directed, when they do not present
themselves; by which the mother will be prevented a tedious labour, and
the child be often brought alive into the world, who otherwise could
hardly escape death.
SECT. VII. _How a Woman should be delivered that has Twins, which
present themselves in different Postures._
We have already spoken something of the birth of twins in the chapter of
natural labour; for it is not an unnatural labour barely to have twins,
provided they come in a right position to the birth. But when they
present themselves in different postures, they come properly under the
denomination of unnatural labours; and if when one child presents itself
in a wrong figure, it makes the labour dangerous and unnatural, it must
needs make it much more so when there are several, and render it not
only more painful to the mother and children, but to the operator also;
for they often trouble each other, and hinder both their births. Besides
which, the womb is so filled with them, that the operator can hardly
introduce his hand without much violence, which he must do, if they are
to be turned or thrust back to give them a better position.