Duer
presented the question of postmortem delivery in this country.
Kelly reports the history of a woman of forty who died in her
eighth pregnancy, and who was delivered of a female child by
version and artificial means. Artificial respiration was
successfully practised on the child, although fifteen minutes had
elapsed from the death of the mother to its extraction. Driver
relates the history of a woman of thirty-five, who died in the
eighth month of gestation, and who was delivered postmortem by
the vagina, manual means only being used. The operator was about
to perform Cesarean section when he heard the noise of the
membranes rupturing. Thornton reports the extraction of a living
child by version after the death of the mother. Aveling has
compiled extensive statistics on all varieties of postmortem
deliveries, collecting 44 cases of spontaneous expulsion of the
fetus after death of the mother.
Aveling states that in 1820 the Council of Cologne sanctioned the
placing of a gag in the mouth of a dead pregnant woman, thereby
hoping to prevent suffocation of the infant, and there are
numerous such laws on record, although most of them pertain to
the performance of Cesarean section immediately after death.
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