But experienced midwives have been known to squeeze back the blood
into the child's body from the cord, and immediately the child that
a moment before was bloodless came back to life again.
It is the natural rule, as we have mentioned above, for all
animals to come into the world head foremost, and children,
moreover, have their hands stretched out by their sides. And the child
gives a cry and puts its hands up to its mouth as soon as it issues
forth.
Moreover the child voids excrement sometimes at once,
sometimes a little later, but in all cases during the first day; and
this excrement is unduly copious in comparison with the size of the
child; it is what the midwives call the meconium or 'poppy-juice'.
In colour it resembles blood, extremely dark and pitch-like, but later
on it becomes milky, for the child takes at once to the breast. Before
birth the child makes no sound, even though in difficult labour it put
forth its head while the rest of the body remains within.
In cases where flooding takes place rather before its time, it
is apt to be followed by difficult parturition. But if discharge
take place after birth in small quantity, and in cases where it only
takes place at the beginning and does not continue till the fortieth
day, then in such cases women make a better recovery and are the
sooner ready to conceive again.
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