ccurred he should be called. About
4 A.M. the husband of the girl, in great fright, summoned the
physician, saying: "Monsieur le Medecin, il y a quelque chose entre les
jambes de ma femme," and, to Dr. Case's surprise, he found the head of
a child wholly expelled during a profound sleep of the mother. In
twenty minutes the secundines followed. The patient, who was only
twenty years old, said that she had dreamt that something was the
matter with her, and awoke with a fright, at which instant, most
probably, the head was expelled. She was afterward confined with the
usual labor-pains.
Palfrey speaks of a woman, pregnant at term, who fell into a sleep
about eleven o'clock, and dreamed that she was in great pain and in
labor, and that sometime after a fine child was crawling over the bed.
After sleeping for about four hours she awoke and noticed a discharge
from the vagina. Her husband started for a light, but before he
obtained it a child was born by a head-presentation. In a few minutes
the labor-pains returned and the feet of a second child presented, and
the child was expelled in three pains, followed in ten minutes by the
placenta. Here is an authentic case in which labor progressed to the
second stage during sleep.
Weill describes the case of a woman of twenty-three who gave birth to a
robust boy on the 16th of June, 1877, and suckled him eleven months.
This birth lasted one hour. She became pregnant again and was delivered
under the following circumstances: She had been walking on the evening
of September 5th and returned home about eleven o'clock to sleep. About
3 A.M. she awoke, feeling the necessity of passing urine. She arose and
seated herself for the purpose. She at once uttered a cry and called
her husband, telling him that a child was born and entreating him to
send for a physician. Weill saw the woman in about ten minutes and she
was in the same position, so he ordered her to be carried to bed. On
examining the urinal he found a female child weighing 10 pounds. He
tied the cord and cared for the child. The woman exhibited little
hemorrhage and made a complete recovery. She had apparently slept
soundly through the uterine contractions until the final strong pain,
which awoke her, and which she imagined was a call for urination.
Samelson says that in 1844 he was sent for in Zabelsdorf, some 30 miles
from Berlin, to attend Hannah Rhode in a case of labor. She had passed
easily through eight parturitions
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