The English midwife enlarged containing directions to midwives; wherein is laid down whatever is most requisite for the safe practising her art. Also instructions for women in their conceiving, bearing and nursing of children. With two new treatises, one of the cure of diseases and symptoms happening to women before and after child-birth. And another of the diseases, &c. of little children, and the conditions necessary to be considered in the choice of their nurses and milk. The whole fitted for the meanest capacities. Illustrated with near 40 copper-cuts.

SECT. VII. Of the several natural situations of the Infant in the Mothers Womb, ac∣cording to the different times of Child-bearing.

WHen the Woman is young with Child, the little creature call'd the Embryo is always of a round Figure, a little longish, having the back-bone moderately turn'd inwards, the thighs folded and a little raised, to which the legs are so joined, that the heels touch the buttocks; the arms are bending and the hands placed upon the knees, towards which the head is inclining forwards, so that the chin toucheth the breast; In this posture it resembles one sitting to void his excrements, and stooping down his head to see what comes from him. Its back bone is at that time placed towards the Mothers, the head uppermost, the face forward, and the feet downward; and proportionably to its growth, it extends its members by little and little; which were exactly folded in the first Month; This posture it usually keeps till the

7th or 8th month, at which time the head be∣ing grown big is carryed downwards by its weight, towards the inward orifice of the Womb, tumbling as it were over its head, so that then the Feet are uppermost, and the Face towards the Mothers great gut; when the posture happens otherwise, 'tis unnatu∣ral; (and both Male and Female lie thus;) because the Child's face coming upwards will be extreamly bruised, and its Nose who∣ly flatted, because of the bones hardness in the passage.

Note further, when the Child hath chang∣ed its first Situation being not yet accustomed to this last, it stirs and torments it self so much sometimes, that the woman, by reason of the pain she feels, is apt to believe she is in labor, and if this circumstance be well con∣sider'd, you will find it to be that first pre∣tended indeavour, which Authors imagine the Child makes to be born the 7th month; and not being able to accomplish it, it stays till the 9th &c. But this is a great mistake, for if the Child turns it self so with the head downwards, or rather is turned, it is but by a natural disposition of the weight of the up∣per parts of the body; and if it stir much at that time and soon after, it is not from a de∣sire to be born, but from the inconvenience it receives from this new posture, to which

it was not before accustomed: and it begins to turn thus sometimes from the 7th month, rarely before, but by accident; often about the 8th and sometimes the 9th only, and at other times also it doth not turn at all, as we may easily perceive in those that come in their first Situation, that is with their Feet fore∣most.

When there are many Children they ought to come in the same Figure if it be a natural Birth, as when there is but one; but usually by their different motions they incommode one another, that for the most part one pre∣sents wrong in time of labour; yea and be∣fore, which is the cause that one comes often with the head, the other with the feet, or some worse posture, and sometimes both come wrong. However the Infant may be settled in the Mothers belly, or in whatever fashion it represents it self at the birth, if it be not according to the posture before said, it is always against nature.