An easy birth takes place without any exces sive strainings and in due season. A difficult birth proceeds naturally, but is joined with great efforts and pangs, and occupies a long time — over six or eight hours. The cause of it is sometimes the stiffness of the fibres of the mother, her advanced years, the disproportion ate size of the child's head and various other causes. Nature, however, finishes even these births; and women in labor ought not to be immediately dejected and impatient on ac count of these difficulties. An unnatural (or properly, an irregular) birth is one in which one or more of the above-mentioned requisites to a natural birth are wanting. An artificial birth is that which is accomplished by the help of art, with instruments or the hands of the attendant. Premature birth is one which happens some weeks before the usual time, namely, after the seventh and before the end of the ninth month. Though nature has as signed the period of 40 weeks for the full maturing of the foetus, it sometimes attains, some weeks before this period has elapsed, such a growth that it may be preserved alive, in some cases, after its separation from the mother. That it has not reached its mature state is determined by various indications. Such a child, for instance, does not cry like full-grown infants, but only utters a faint sound, sleeps constantly, and must be kept con stantly warm, otherwise its hands and feet immediately become chilled. Besides this, in a premature child, more or less, according as it is more or less premature, the skin over the whole body is red, often indeed blue, covered with a fine, long, woolly hair, especially on the sides of the face, and on the back; the fontanel of the head is large, the' skull-bones easily moved; the face looks old and wrinkled; the eyes are generally closed; the nails on the fingers and toes short, tender and soft, hardly a line in length; the weight of such a child is under six, often under five pounds. The birth
is called untimely when the foetus is separated from the womb before the seventh month. Such children can• rarely be kept alive; there are instances, however, of five months' children living. Some writers have contended that a seven months' child is more likely to live than one born a month later.
Late birth is a birth after the usual period of 40 weeks. As this reckoning of the time from pregnancy to birth is founded for the most part solely on the evidence of the mother, there is much room for mistake or deception. The question is one of much interest in medical jurisprudence, as the inquiry often arises whether a child born more than 40 weeks after the death of the reputed father is to be con sidered legitimate or not, The importance of the question and the uncertainty of the proof have occasioned a great variety of opinions among medical writers. Most of them doubt the truth of the mother's assertions about such a delayed birth and give as their reason that nature confines herself to the fixed period of pregnancy; that grief, sickness, etc., cannot hinder the growth of the foetus, etc. Others maintain, on the contrary, that nature binds herself to no fixed rules; that various causes may delay the growth of the child, etc.
Abortion and miscarriage take place whop a foetus is brought forth so immature that it, cannot live. They happen from the beginning of pregnancy to seventh month, but most the third month. The occasions, especially in those of a susceptible or sanguine temperament, are violent shocks of body or mind by blows, falling, dancing, cramp, pas sion, etc.