Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 | Page 9

rested, and it was notable that the
greatest difference was found in the case of the farm girls who were
probably the most robust and also the hardest worked.
The usual time of gestation ranges between 274 and 280 days (or 280
to 290 days from the last menstrual period), and occasionally a few
days longer, though there is dispute as to the length of the extreme limit,
which some authorities would extend to 300 days, or even to 320 days
(Pinard, in Richet's Dictionnaire de Physiologie, vol. vii, pp. 150-162;
Taylor, Medical Jurisprudence, fifth edition, pp. 44, 98 et seq.; L.M.
Allen, "Prolonged Gestation," American Journal Obstetrics, April,
1907). It is possible, as Müller suggested in 1898 in a Thèse de Nancy,
that civilization tends to shorten the period of gestation, and that in
earlier ages it was longer than it is now. Such a tendency to premature

birth under the exciting nervous influences of civilization would thus
correspond, as Bouchacourt has pointed out (La Grossesse, p. 113), to
the similar effect of domestication in animals. The robust
countrywoman becomes transformed into the more graceful, but also
more fragile, town woman who needs a degree of care and hygiene
which the countrywoman with her more resistant nervous system can to
some extent dispense with, although even she, as we see, suffers in the
person of her child, and probably in her own person, from the effects of
work during pregnancy. The serious nature of this civilized tendency to
premature birth--of which lack of rest in pregnancy is, however, only
one of several important causes--is shown by the fact that Séropian
(_Fréquence Comparée des Causes de l'Accouchement Prémature_,
Thèse de Paris, 1907) found that about one-third of French births
(32.28 per cent.) are to a greater or less extent premature. Pregnancy is
not a morbid condition; on the contrary, a pregnant woman is at the
climax of her most normal physiological life, but owing to the tension
thus involved she is specially liable to suffer from any slight shock or
strain.
It must be remarked that the increased tendency to premature birth,
while in part it may be due to general tendencies of civilization, is also
in part due to very definite and preventable causes. Syphilis, alcoholism,
and attempts to produce abortion are among the not uncommon causes
of premature birth (see, e.g., G.F. McCleary, "The Influence of
Antenatal Conditions on Infantile Mortality," British Medical Journal,
Aug. 13, 1904).
Premature birth ought to be avoided, because the child born too early is
insufficiently equipped for the task before him. Astengo, dealing with
nearly 19,000 cases at the Lariboisière Hospital in Paris and the
Maternité, found, that reckoning from the date of the last menstruation,
there is a direct relation between the weight of the infant at birth and
the length of the pregnancy. The longer the pregnancy, the finer the
child (Astengo, _Rapport du Poids des Enfants à la Durée de la
Grossesse_, Thèse de Paris, 1905).
The frequency of premature birth is probably as great in England as in

France. Ballantyne states (_Manual of Antenatal Pathology; The
Foetus_, p. 456) that for practical purposes the frequency of premature
labors in maternity hospitals may be put at 20 per cent., but that if all
infants weighing less than 3,000 grammes are to be regarded as
premature, it rises to 41.5 per cent. That premature birth is increasing in
England seems to be indicated by the fact that during the past
twenty-five years there has been a steady rise in the mortality rate from
premature birth. McCleary, who discusses this point and considers the
increase real, concludes that "it would appear that there has been a
diminution in the quality as well as in the quantity of our output of
babies" (see also a discussion, introduced by Dawson Williams, on
"Physical Deterioration," British Medical Journal, Oct. 14, 1905).
It need scarcely be pointed out that not only is immaturity a cause of
deterioration in the infants that survive, but that it alone serves
enormously to decrease the number of infants that are able to survive.
Thus G. Newman states (loc. cit.) that in most large English urban
districts immaturity is the chief cause of infant mortality, furnishing
about 30 per cent. of the infant deaths; even in London (Islington)
Alfred Harris (British Medical Journal, Dec. 14, 1907) finds that it is
responsible for nearly 17 per cent. of the infantile deaths. It is estimated
by Newman that about half of the mothers of infants dying of
immaturity suffer from marked ill-health and poor physique; they are
not, therefore, fitted to be mothers.
Rest during pregnancy is a very powerful agent in preventing
premature birth. Thus Dr. Sarraute-Lourié has compared 1,550
pregnant women at the Asile Michelet who rested before confinement
with 1,550 women