At the end of two days, severe pains set in,
and a warm hip-bath and an opiate were ordered. While in the bath
she bore a fully-matured, living, male child, to the great
surprise of herself and her friends. The child might have been
drowned had not assistance been close at hand.
Birth by the Rectum.--In some cases in which there is some
obstacle to the delivery of a child by the natural passages, the
efforts of nature to expel the product of conception lead to an
anomalous exit. There are some details of births by the rectum
mentioned in the last century by Reta and others. Payne cites the
instance of a woman of thirty-three, in labor thirty-six hours,
in whom there was a congenital absence of the vaginal orifice.
The finger, gliding along the perineum, arrived at a distended
anus, just inside of which was felt a fetal head. He anesthetized
the patient and delivered the child with forceps, and without
perineal rupture. There was little hemorrhage, and the placenta
was removed with slight difficulty. Five months later, Payne
found an unaltered condition of the perineum and vicinity; there
was absence of the vaginal orifice, and, on introducing the
finger along the anterior wall of the rectum, a fistula was
found, communicating with the vagina; above this point the
arrangement and the situation of the parts were normal.
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