Licence: In copyright
Credit: Infant mortality / by Hugh T. Ashby. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![in] THE PHYSIQUE OF THE MOTHER 3^ up to the day of her confinement. Also when she has to do manual work the baby is often born before its full time (premature), and this again means usually a small, unhealthy child. On the other hand, it is only fair to say that some well- known authorities hold the opposite view, and this is that no matter what condition the mother is in before the birth of the baby, the baby will be born healthy and in good condition. In the Report of the Privy Council upon physical deterioration Dr Eichholz recalled a medical factor of great importance— viz. the small percentage of unhealthy births among the poor, even down to the poorest; the poorest and most ill-nurtured women bring forth as hale and strong-looking babies as those in better conditions. It almost appears as though the unborn child fights strenuously for its own health at the expense of the mother and arrives in the world with a full chance of living a normal physical existence. Prof. D. T. Cunningham^ also supports Dr Eichholz, and says that the results of poverty are not transmissible from parent to offspring. These latter views are, however, quite opposed to experience and to the results obtained from experiments on animals. The foetus is not the same as a tumour, which grows like a parasite on its host, but it is a physiological process coming in the life of married women. The one is an abnormal condition, while the other is a normal one. The experience gained in children's hospitals, where babies born in different conditions of life are seen daily, shows clearly that if the mother is thin and badly nourished, the new-born baby is also thin and below the average weight of a healthy one. As the late Dr Henry Ashby* said at the same conference on physical degeneration: '' We often see a fully developed infant a day or two old brought to the out-patient department by a midwife or neighbour very badly nourished, feeble and quite incapable of withstanding the conditions of external existence. There may be no evidence or question of syphiHs, but simply the fact of coming from a poor, badly nourished mother. Moreover, the infants from poor, weakly mothers,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21361083_0049.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
