If you give birth to a child and it falls down the sink, what do?
December 14, 2020 8:05 PM Subscribe
In a letter, Walt Whitman describes a story he'd heard: a poor woman gave birth in a bathroom, and the baby slipped down the drain into the sewer and the was rescued, alive.
Having somewhat recently had a child myself and being weirdly preoccupied with this odd tale, I need someone to explain to me what would've happened to the umbilical cord etc. Would it have snapped? Or would the babe have pulled out the whole placenta? Save me from late night rumination!
The tale: "...about 3 o'clock in the morning she got up & went to the sink, & there she gave birth to a child, which fell down the sink into the sewer runs beneath, fortunately the water was not turned on—the chaplain got up, carried Mrs Lane out, & then roused up a lot of men from the hospital, with spades &c. dug a trench outside, & got into the sink, & took out the poor little child, it lay there on its back, in about two inches of water—well, strange as it may seem, the child was alive, (it fell about five feet through the sink)—& is now living & likely to live, is quite bright, has a head of thick black hair..."
The tale: "...about 3 o'clock in the morning she got up & went to the sink, & there she gave birth to a child, which fell down the sink into the sewer runs beneath, fortunately the water was not turned on—the chaplain got up, carried Mrs Lane out, & then roused up a lot of men from the hospital, with spades &c. dug a trench outside, & got into the sink, & took out the poor little child, it lay there on its back, in about two inches of water—well, strange as it may seem, the child was alive, (it fell about five feet through the sink)—& is now living & likely to live, is quite bright, has a head of thick black hair..."
It wasn’t a sink in our sense of the word. It was a pit toilet connected to the sewers, which NYC had in abundance at the time.
posted by Miko at 9:40 PM on December 14, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by Miko at 9:40 PM on December 14, 2020 [6 favorites]
Not that this helps, but there's the song by the (super)band Cream, Mother's Lament. Maybe it helps in that it shows that there exists a song about this, indicating that it's a common enough thought that it's not a completely weird thing to be thinking about.
posted by smcameron at 9:49 PM on December 14, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by smcameron at 9:49 PM on December 14, 2020 [3 favorites]
This sounds like an urban legend that Whitman repeated.
posted by latkes at 10:43 PM on December 14, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by latkes at 10:43 PM on December 14, 2020 [5 favorites]
It happened in China a while back, I remember the news stories - The Guardian, content warning for trauma (the baby wound up taken in by grandparents, and was healthy).
Newborn babies are simultaneously tough and delicate, and can survive briefly in horrific circumstances. Smallish baby and a big pipe.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 11:25 PM on December 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
Newborn babies are simultaneously tough and delicate, and can survive briefly in horrific circumstances. Smallish baby and a big pipe.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 11:25 PM on December 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: The letter reads like the woman delivered alone, probably in the squatting position. "[T]he placenta detaches within a minute of the birth. As the baby delivers, the uterus changes shape such that the wall the placenta was previously attached to, no longer exists as it was before. Delivering the placenta by 5 minutes after birth, in squatting, uses gravity to help deliver the placenta before uterine atony and placental retention occur. In contrast to this, if the woman is laying down, the placenta detaches and follows the pull of gravity downward, and ends up laying on the posterior side of the uterus below the level of cervix. Simultaneously, the cervix begins to close." Whether or not the cord's been cut, the squatting position reduces maternal blood loss. (More on Judy's 3-4-5 protocol.) In 1863, Whitman was in DC nursing soldiers; more on Civil War-era sewers.
[No idea about the urban legend re-telling angle, but I did wonder if the name "Mrs. Lane" was a bit of a goof? From 1857-61, Miss Harriet Lane served as First Lady for her uncle and guardian, James Buchanan. Created in 1861, the United States Sanitary Commission was a private relief organization that supplemented the Union Army Medical Corps’ efforts to care for wounded soldiers. During the Civil War, fairs were held in over twenty Northern cities to raise funds [...] The Brooklyn and New York City “Sanitary Fairs” were massive endeavors resulting in donations of enormous amounts — $300,000 and $1,000,000, respectively — to the Sanitary Commission. Mrs. David Lane was on the board of the NYC Metropolitan Sanitary Fair (s).]
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:11 AM on December 15, 2020 [2 favorites]
[No idea about the urban legend re-telling angle, but I did wonder if the name "Mrs. Lane" was a bit of a goof? From 1857-61, Miss Harriet Lane served as First Lady for her uncle and guardian, James Buchanan. Created in 1861, the United States Sanitary Commission was a private relief organization that supplemented the Union Army Medical Corps’ efforts to care for wounded soldiers. During the Civil War, fairs were held in over twenty Northern cities to raise funds [...] The Brooklyn and New York City “Sanitary Fairs” were massive endeavors resulting in donations of enormous amounts — $300,000 and $1,000,000, respectively — to the Sanitary Commission. Mrs. David Lane was on the board of the NYC Metropolitan Sanitary Fair (s).]
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:11 AM on December 15, 2020 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks Iris, that's helpful! Sounds likely the placenta would have been delivered too (and faster than when birthing lying down) and fallen down the drain with the babe.
To be clear I've no doubt circumstances like this happen (baby immediately falling away from the mother), I'm mostly preoccupied with what happens to the placenta/umbilical cord in such a situation, given how tough umbilical cords are! Thanks y'all!
posted by stray at 6:40 AM on December 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
To be clear I've no doubt circumstances like this happen (baby immediately falling away from the mother), I'm mostly preoccupied with what happens to the placenta/umbilical cord in such a situation, given how tough umbilical cords are! Thanks y'all!
posted by stray at 6:40 AM on December 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
I can speak from experience to say that it is indeed possible for the umbilical cord to snap. Memail me for details if interested.
posted by number9dream at 11:07 AM on December 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by number9dream at 11:07 AM on December 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Yes I think it's possible but I feel like the chance of finding a healthy baby a few hours later if the cord snapped during or shortly after birth is much much lower (possibly zero). The cord has to be quickly clamped to prevent bleeding out.
posted by muddgirl at 11:41 AM on December 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by muddgirl at 11:41 AM on December 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
Not if the placenta is still attached. See also: lotus birth.
posted by jesourie at 10:02 AM on December 16, 2020
posted by jesourie at 10:02 AM on December 16, 2020
If the placenta is attached then the cord hasn't snapped.
posted by muddgirl at 10:17 AM on December 16, 2020
posted by muddgirl at 10:17 AM on December 16, 2020
Best answer: A multipari who has given birth to ten children already can give birth real fast. The average birth weight back then was much lower. The baby was quite likely around five pounds. Five minutes from crowning to actually delivery of the afterbirth may have been a vast over estimate of the time required. Five minutes, or two more contractions, is the time they suggest for a modern hospital birth when lying on your back in stirrups. Make it one minute forty-seven seconds in this case and you are still looking at highly plausible timeline.
She may very well have had no idea what her due date was due to nursing another child and not menstruating, and not having a calendar at home. Obviously no ultrasound or pre-natal doctor's visits. She may not have known if she was having a miscarriage, giving birth or merely having an unpleasantly painful bowel movement until the birth was well underway.
There may or may not have been any help from other women, and if there was, getting someone to look after any older kids so that she could deal with this herself may have taken priority over getting them to help her, if the alternative, say, was to leave four kids under the age of four alone in a room with a fire in it.
And that room, possibly shared between two families with seven people and only two beds may not have been a better place to give birth than the water closet.
She probably defecated as the child moved downward into the vagina. She may have thus concluded that she was only having a painful bowl movement and did not need to be ready to salvage what was about to come out. When it did come out it may have been small enough and fast enough that she couldn't tell from the sensations if it was a baby coming out of the vagina, or more feces coming out from her anus.
It was shortly after three AM when this happened and there may have been no light, or next to no light in the room. Kerosene lamps were standard then, and they produced toxic fumes that caused many deaths from chronic respiratory illnesses. The lower you trimmed the lamp the fewer the fumes and the longer the expensive fuel would last. I would assume the birth took place in full darkness.
When someone is giving birth their body takes control. Transition is when the baby starts moving into the birth canal and at that point many women are not capable of much except being along for the ride. It's got to happen and got to happen without delay so that the child doesn't suffocate, so the process is automatic enough that it will happen regardless of gravity, if the woman is conscious or not and without any help from her. This means that she's not always capable of helping, or doing much other than hanging on. She's not supposed to be able to interfere. That also limits her capacity to help.
Nor do I think it reflects badly upon her if she had taken a few shots of gin to help her through an exceedingly painful experience. That was a standard procedure back then, long before prohibition when gin was often the only medicine someone might be able to afford.
The chaplain is described as getting up and carrying her out. It is likely therefore that she was in no shape to function after everything had come out either because of blood loss, shock, debility, gin, etc. She is described as staying in the closet even after people had come along, found out what was going on and run for the chaplain. It might have been a seven year old older child that ran for the man. Likely therefore she was not in much shape to deal with giving birth before he got there if she wasn't yet in good enough shape to get back to her room either.
My guess is that they found the child and the membrane still linked together in the sewer pipe, but never mentioned the placenta as it was a given to anyone who has ever witnessed the birth of babies or many standard domestic animals.
Children, especially undersized ones are sometimes born with a caul - that is, born still in, or partially in the placenta. The contractions can cause the placenta to separate before the baby is actually born. When that happens the mother usually bleeds a lot - sometimes to death - which can leave her essentially non functional by the time the child is actually out of her.
Finally the poor soul may have been hoping to allow the child to die. Infant neglect was one of the most common types of birth control back then. If you couldn't afford to feed or clothe it, and had already lost a child or two to malnutrition despite your best efforts, not investing anything at all in the latest baby was a choice that many marginal people then were forced to make. If she had been able to give birth without anyone knowing she might never have alerted anyone or requested help. That may only have happened because someone heard her or found her semi conscious in the closet and realised what had happened and ran for the chaplain.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:27 PM on December 16, 2020 [4 favorites]
She may very well have had no idea what her due date was due to nursing another child and not menstruating, and not having a calendar at home. Obviously no ultrasound or pre-natal doctor's visits. She may not have known if she was having a miscarriage, giving birth or merely having an unpleasantly painful bowel movement until the birth was well underway.
There may or may not have been any help from other women, and if there was, getting someone to look after any older kids so that she could deal with this herself may have taken priority over getting them to help her, if the alternative, say, was to leave four kids under the age of four alone in a room with a fire in it.
And that room, possibly shared between two families with seven people and only two beds may not have been a better place to give birth than the water closet.
She probably defecated as the child moved downward into the vagina. She may have thus concluded that she was only having a painful bowl movement and did not need to be ready to salvage what was about to come out. When it did come out it may have been small enough and fast enough that she couldn't tell from the sensations if it was a baby coming out of the vagina, or more feces coming out from her anus.
It was shortly after three AM when this happened and there may have been no light, or next to no light in the room. Kerosene lamps were standard then, and they produced toxic fumes that caused many deaths from chronic respiratory illnesses. The lower you trimmed the lamp the fewer the fumes and the longer the expensive fuel would last. I would assume the birth took place in full darkness.
When someone is giving birth their body takes control. Transition is when the baby starts moving into the birth canal and at that point many women are not capable of much except being along for the ride. It's got to happen and got to happen without delay so that the child doesn't suffocate, so the process is automatic enough that it will happen regardless of gravity, if the woman is conscious or not and without any help from her. This means that she's not always capable of helping, or doing much other than hanging on. She's not supposed to be able to interfere. That also limits her capacity to help.
Nor do I think it reflects badly upon her if she had taken a few shots of gin to help her through an exceedingly painful experience. That was a standard procedure back then, long before prohibition when gin was often the only medicine someone might be able to afford.
The chaplain is described as getting up and carrying her out. It is likely therefore that she was in no shape to function after everything had come out either because of blood loss, shock, debility, gin, etc. She is described as staying in the closet even after people had come along, found out what was going on and run for the chaplain. It might have been a seven year old older child that ran for the man. Likely therefore she was not in much shape to deal with giving birth before he got there if she wasn't yet in good enough shape to get back to her room either.
My guess is that they found the child and the membrane still linked together in the sewer pipe, but never mentioned the placenta as it was a given to anyone who has ever witnessed the birth of babies or many standard domestic animals.
Children, especially undersized ones are sometimes born with a caul - that is, born still in, or partially in the placenta. The contractions can cause the placenta to separate before the baby is actually born. When that happens the mother usually bleeds a lot - sometimes to death - which can leave her essentially non functional by the time the child is actually out of her.
Finally the poor soul may have been hoping to allow the child to die. Infant neglect was one of the most common types of birth control back then. If you couldn't afford to feed or clothe it, and had already lost a child or two to malnutrition despite your best efforts, not investing anything at all in the latest baby was a choice that many marginal people then were forced to make. If she had been able to give birth without anyone knowing she might never have alerted anyone or requested help. That may only have happened because someone heard her or found her semi conscious in the closet and realised what had happened and ran for the chaplain.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:27 PM on December 16, 2020 [4 favorites]
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posted by muddgirl at 9:07 PM on December 14, 2020