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The membranes sometimes do press forth with the waters, three or four fingers' breadth out of the body before the child resembling a bladder full of water; but there is no great danger in breaking them, if they be not already broken; for when the case is so, the child is always in readiness to follow, being in the passage, but let the midwife be very careful not to pull it with her hand, lest the after-burden be thereby loosened before its time, for it adheres thereto very strongly.
Take date stones, and beat them to powder, and let her take half a drachm of them in white wine at a time. Take parsley and bruise it and press out the juice, and dip a linen cloth in it, and put it so dipped into the mouth of the womb; it will presently cause the child to come away, though it be dead, and it will bring away the after-burden.
The child being thus born, the next thing requisite is, to bring away the after-burden, but before that let the midwife be very careful to examine whether there be more children in the womb; for sometimes a woman may have twins that expected it not; which the midwife may easily know by the continuance of the pains after the child is born, and the bigness of the mother's belly.
It is the usual custom of midwives to put a piece of burnt rag to it, which we commonly call tinder; but I would rather advise them to put a little ammoniac to it, because of its drying qualities. SECT. III. How to bring away the After-burden.
But if the after-burden should come first, it must not be put up again by any means; for the infant having no further occasion for it, it would be but an obstacle if it were put up; in this case, it must be cut off, having tied the navel-string, and afterwards draw forth the child with all speed that may be, lest it be suffocated. SECT. V. Of Women labouring of a dead Child.
And therefore, when the operator hath drawn forth one child, he must separate it from the burden, having tied and cut the navel-string, and then fetch the other by the feet in the same manner, and afterwards bring away the after-burden with the two strings as hath been before showed.
Setting aside the name given to this by the Greeks and Latins, it is called in English by the name of secundine, after-birth or after-burden; which are held to be four in number. The first is called placenta, because it resembles the form of a cake, and is knit both to the navel and chorion, and makes up the greatest part of the secundine or after-birth.
A woman cannot be said to be fairly delivered, though the child be born, till the after-burden be also taken from her; herein differing from most animals, who, when they have brought forth their young, cast forth nothing else but some water, and the membranes which contained them.
When the head is fetched out of the womb care must be taken that not the least part of it be left behind, and likewise to cleanse the womb of the after-burden, if yet remaining. If the burden be wholly separated from the side of the womb, that ought to be first brought away, because it may also hinder the taking hold of the head.
The stone aetites held to the privities, is of extraordinary virtue, and instantly draws away, both child and after-burden; but great care must be taken to remove it presently, or it will draw forth womb and all; for such is the magnetic virtue of this stone that both child and womb follow it as readily as iron doth the load-stone or the load-stone the north star.
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