Weightlessness In Womb As In Space

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30930, 10 December 1965, Page 2

Weightlessness In Womb As In Space

Everyone has spent longer in a state of weightlessness than any spaceman in orbit around the earth, says Dr. A. W. Liley, senior research fellow at the post-graduate school of obstetrics and gynaecology at Auckland University'.

Dr. Liley, who pioneered the technique of pre-birth blood transfusion at the National Women’s Hospital, told the Auckland Creditmen’s Club that while in the womb the unborn baby was in an almost weightless state, just like any spaceman.

“A great deal of nonsense haa been talked about how the human frame will react

to weightiesnesa,” he Mid. But nobody had thought to consult obstetricians.

For instance, the unborn baby swallowed prodigious amounts at fluid in the womb, as much as five ounces an boor, and passed great quantities of extremely dilute urine. Man. under the weightlew condition of space, also passed a lot of urine neces-

stinting quite elaborate plumbing systems.

"This was rather a surprise to the space people,” Dr. Liley said. “But they could have been toM in advance if

they had consulted anybody who knew a thing or two about the unborn baby.” Neglected Field Dr. Liley acid that until recently care of the unborn and new-born baby was one of toe most neglected fields of medicine. Even mothers sometimes regarded their unborn babies as a bit of a

nuisance and, in the eyes of the law, they had very little existence at all. Killing an unborn baby was not murder or even infanticide.

But the unborn baby was something in his own right—not soft and deticate but incredibly tough. The baby in the womb was not in a state of coma but more in a state of drowsy wakefulness—“probably bored stiff.” Tests made before and after birth proved that toe baby was conscious much of the time.

Obstetricians believed that the unborn baby was much more aware of his surroundings than previously was thought—and much eariier. He was well aware of comfort, for instance, and did not stand on bis head out of perversity but because it was toe most comfortable position in toe womb. Pain and Sound The unborn baby could feel pain, could hear many sounds and could see, although there was not much to see in the dim light of the womb. But there was plenty to hear, inducting his mother’s body noises and loud noises outside.

Birth was undoubtedly a painful experience for the baby as well as toe mother. Drugs could relieve the pein of both but had gone out of favour because of their effect on the baby’s breathing. “I wonder if we have overdone this?’’ asked Dr. Liley.

Most babies had plenty of room in the womb and they moved around endlessly except in the last stages. They were moving long before the mother first felt “quickening” at about 18 or 18 weeks, flexing their muscles and sucking their fingers, toes or even thumbs.