The Procession of the Months
“The mother is the child’s supreme parent.”
HAVELOCK ELLIS.
At first invisible, with no outer changes to indicate the vital
internal processes, from the moment of conception an intense activity
has begun within the mother. Sometimes women are aware of the actual
moment of conception, and faintly perceive for the first two or three
days sensations too delicate to be called pain and yet intense and
penetrating as though of the lightest touch upon the inward and most
sensitive consciousness. I have read reports of women, and know one
personally, who felt the process of conception, although this will
probably be generally received with incredulity. The majority of people
are less completely cognisant of the voices of their own organism,
and perhaps for two or three months are almost unaware that anything
different from the usual course of their life is taking place.
If, as seems to me unquestionably the best and happiest relation, the
man and woman who are creating a child are doing so deliberately,
consciously and with acute interest, a mutual knowledge of the
principal stages through which their child passes should add greatly to
their interest and the intensity of their feeling.
From the first moment of its conception, indeed often for months before
this has been possible, their child is to the loving pair a living
entity of whom they may speak.
The active egg cell, which is ready for fertilization, is produced
in one or other of the two ovaries, which lie internally and cannot
be touched or reached in any way without operating upon the mother;
they have no direct contact with the outer world. These two ovaries
each communicate with the central chamber, which is called the womb or
uterus and this is a strong muscular organ, into the walls of which the
attachment of the minute embryo fastens, and within this chamber the
growing embryo gradually fills the space reserved for it. The womb or
uterus has a connection with the outer world through the lower mouth
called the os, which opens into the vaginal channel. This os or mouth
with its rounded lip can just be felt at the end of the vaginal channel.
Fertilization consists in the actual penetration of the egg cell by the
male sperm, the nuclei of which unite. As I have elsewhere described
(_Married Love_, Chap. V) the numbers of male sperm provided in any act
of union outnumber by millions those actually required, because for
each single fertilization one egg cell combines with one sperm cell.
The egg cell or ovum is very large in comparison with a single sperm;
nevertheless it is itself a minute, almost invisible protoplasmic
speck, measuring rather less than 1/120th of an inch in diameter,
and roughly spherical in its shape--a minute pellet of jelly-like
protoplasm with a concentrated centre or nucleus. The single sperm
which unites with it is a still more minute fleck, and is little more
than a nucleus with a film of protoplasm round it, and a long cilium
or hair-like continuation which it lashes to and fro, and thus propels
itself or swims towards the egg cell. Judging by analogy, it leaves
this tail outside the egg cell on the mutual fusion. The nucleus of
the sperm and of the egg unite in a very complex and precise manner.
In other organisms, and probably also in human beings, the entry of a
single sperm to the egg cell shuts out the possibility of other sperms
fusing with them, because directly it has been fertilized, the egg cell
exudes a film of substance which antagonizes the other sperms, and
which ultimately forms a filmy skin around itself.
From the moment of the fusion of the nuclei of the male and female
cells, active changes and nuclear divisions are in progress. The egg
cell, which is free, travels slowly to the allotted place in the womb
or uterus of the mother, and there it settles down in the tissue of the
wall and attaches itself. Until it has attached itself firmly to the
wall of the uterus, conception proper has not finally taken place, and
a fertilized egg cell may be lost through want of a capacity to attach
itself to the womb, or through some nervous or other disturbance of the
walls of the womb, which throw it off after it has been attached. The
distinction between the actual moment of fertilization (or union of the
male and female nuclei) and of the final attachment which secures true
conception is an important one, though frequently overlooked. Sometimes
the failure to conceive a child may not at all be due to lack of
fertility and readiness to unite on the part of the egg cell and sperm
cell, but may be due to some nervous or other influence on the wall of
the uterus, which consequently throws off the ovum before it has firmly
settled into its place there.
A few days after conception, and when the ovum has attached itself
to the proper place, a definite zone of tissue begins to form which,
growing and altering with the growth of the tiny developing child
(which is now called the embryo), forms a medium of transmission
between it and the mother through which pass the substances used and
excreted by the embryo in its growth.
After fertilization, intense and rapid activity takes place in
the nuclei of the cells, first in the united nucleus of egg and
sperm cell, and later in the nuclei of all the resulting division
cells. The nucleus of the sperm cell is supposed to contain twelve
chromosomes which go through a formal rearrangement and mingling with
the corresponding chromosomes in the egg cell. As a result of the
complete fusion and intermingling of the male and the female factors
on fertilization, all the resulting divisions of cells which follow
derive their nuclei partly from the male and partly from the female
nucleus of the parents. Thus, if it were possible to trace the history
of every tissue cell in the body of your child, we should see that each
nucleus of all the myriads that compose its structure would ancestrally
consist of part of the many sub-divisions of the nuclei of both father
and mother. Thus to speak of one side of the body as being male in its
inheritance and the other female, is the most unmitigated nonsense,
though this idea formed the basis of a recent book.
The rapidity with which the first cells grow to form tissues, once they
have been stimulated by union is very great, and from the ovum, which
on the day of fertilization is only 1/120th of an inch in size, the
growth is so rapid that it is ten times as big at the end of fourteen
days. By that time the length is one-twelfth of an inch, and it weighs
one grain. By the thirtieth day the tiny embryo is already one-third
of an inch big, and were it practicable, which, of course, it is not,
to remove it living from its bed of tissue in the mother’s womb and
examine it, even with the naked eye, and still more with a magnifying
glass, it would be possible to see the rudiments of the legs, head and
arms which are to be.
By the fortieth day the embryo is about one inch in length, and the
shape of the child, which it is to be, is quite clearly visible. Dark
points are to be seen where later it will have eyes, nose and mouth,
and there is already a hint of its backbone.
Meanwhile, as may be realized, although to have grown in forty days to
the size of an inch from a minute speck 1/120th part of an inch is a
great and rapid achievement, nevertheless the existence of a thing one
inch big within her makes little outer difference to the mother, and
all the earlier weeks and months of the growth of this tiny organism do
not yet take more visible effect on the mother’s body than to enhance
its contour. After the first child this effect is less noticeable, and
a woman may be unaware that she is about to become a mother. The first
sign in a really healthy woman generally is in the form of her breasts,
which sometimes begin to enlarge by the second or third week. It is
said that the more healthy and perfectly fitted for motherhood a woman
is, the sooner her breasts show signs of the effect of the developing
embryo but, particularly with a woman who has already borne a child,
there may be no external sign until at least three months have passed.
By the sixth week, the limbs and most essential parts of the child are
apparent, and there are the minute indications of the beginning of
its future sex organs. It is evident, therefore, that if there is any
desire to control the sex of the coming child, it is already too late
by the sixth week to do anything, were it ever possible reliably to
control sex at any time. It is, therefore, apparent that any passionate
desire for a child of one or the other sex which the mother may indulge
in when she knows she is about to be a mother, say by the third or
fourth month, is futile. It may also be injurious (see Chapter XIV).
By the second month, nearly all the parts are fully apparent, even the
eyelids are visible in the embryo and a tiny nose begins to project;
fingers and toes can be seen, and some centres of bone begin to
harden, as for instance, in the ribs.
By the third month the embryo reaches an average length of three or
more inches, and weighs on an average about 2-1/2 ounces. In this month
the sex organs of the future baby are rapidly developing, and indeed
are rather unduly prominent in proportion to the other parts which
enlarge relatively later.
Between the third and the fourth month, or often not till a little
after the fourth month, the active muscular movements of the embryo’s
limbs can be felt by the mother. The experience of this, like the
consciousness of the moment of conception, depends very much upon the
sensitiveness and delicate balance of the mother’s conscious control of
herself.
Some are insensitively, though perhaps comfortably, unaware of what
is going on in their systems; others are conscious, not of what is
properly going on, but of what is going wrong in their systems owing to
disease or maladjustment; but there are others who, in perfect health,
are yet so acutely sensitive and conscious that they can at will
detect, as it were, the condition of their whole organs. Such women as
these will sooner feel the active movements of the embryo than those
who are less perceptive. As a rule, medical practitioners estimate that
about half-way between the date of conception and the date of birth,
which should be a full nine calendar months, that is to say about 4-1/2
months from the date of conception, muscular movements of the child are
detectable and distinct.
In the third month, however, some women are conscious of the most
delicate fluttering sensation.
By the end of the third month, a definite enlargement of the mother’s
body becomes visible, because not only the actual child within her
has to be accounted for in the space among her organs, but all the
accessory growth of the chamber which accommodates the child in the
womb has to find its place, the womb growing rapidly and containing
not only the child, but the large amount of fluid by which the child
is surrounded, and in which it partly floats. The visible changes in
the mother to some extent depend on the proportion of this fluid which
develops, some having much more than others, and it is to this rather
than to the actual size of the child for the first four or five months
that any outward change is due.
About the end of the third month the soft and cartilaginous beginnings
of the vertebral column begin to harden in various centres, and
afterwards the hardening of the bones (or ossification) slowly spreads
throughout the whole skeletal system. For some other bones in the
body, however, the hardening is not fully completed by the time of
birth.
By the fifth month, the child weighs six to eight ounces, and is from
seven to nine inches long. By this time its movements are very active
and almost continuous except when it sleeps. It should be trained
to sleep at the same time as its mother, and thus give her rest. My
phrase “it should be trained to sleep” may arouse incredulous smiles
from medical men, even from mothers who have borne children, but it
is not impossible to train a child even so young as an unborn embryo,
strange as it may sound. From about this month (the fifth) to the time
of birth, the child appears to have a strong and definite personality,
and sometimes, in some strange and subtle way, it seems possible to
communicate with it. If there is that sweet and intense intimacy
between mother and father which there should be if the full beauty of
parenthood is to be realized, the child is apparently to some extent
conscious of the nearness of its father, and I know at least of one or
two couples who spoke to their coming child as though it were present,
and who, by a touch of the hand could to some extent control and soothe
it so that it would sleep during the night when the mother desired to
sleep.
About the fifth month the actual nails begin to grow, although the
local preparations for their growth took place much earlier.
After the fifth month, the child grows rapidly in weight, in the sixth
month weighing nearly two pounds and during the seventh nearly three.
If it is placed in the best possible position, its head would be
directed downwards, and it should be lying so that its arms and legs
are tucked in much as a kitten curls up when it is asleep. It will
move, however, sometimes completely round, entirely altering its
position.
By the eighth month it weighs about four pounds and averages perhaps
sixteen inches or so long. It should by this time be very active, so
that its movements are not only strongly felt by the mother, but are
externally quite perceptible.
By the ninth month, at birth, the child weighs between six and eight
or more pounds. It is better for the mother that it should not be too
heavy, as, unless she is a large and strongly built woman, the actual
weight of the child becomes a great strain upon her, however strong she
may be.
A child may be born during the seventh month, and children born
during the seventh month live and have sometimes even grown up
learned and important men. Sir Isaac Newton is an illustration of a
premature child. Usually, however, a seventh month infant is terribly
handicapped; its skin is not yet fully developed, and in many respects
it is quite unfitted to face the world.
Many claims are made that a child is seven months at birth which are
based on the mis-counting of the date of conception or a desire to
conceal a pre-marital conception. When one is shown, as one sometimes
is, a bouncing, healthy, ordinary baby, and told that it was “a very
forward seven months child,” those who know can only smile or sigh,
according to the circumstances, for an ordinary, healthy, bouncing baby
with nails and well formed skin has never yet been generated in seven
months.
The seventh month is the time of greatest danger for a late
miscarriage, and many have been the disappointments of parents who
ardently desired a child, but who lost it through premature birth at
the seventh month. I have often wished to know why this should be so,
and have found no satisfactory answer or indication of any scientific
reason for this, but when revolving all the possibilities of ancestral
reminiscence, it occurred to me that possibly our earlier ancestors,
ancestors in fact so early as to be scarcely human, were born at the
seventh month. I was, therefore, interested to find that for some of
the monkeys seven months is the date of normal birth. Possibly some
such ancestral characteristic may make the seventh month a critical
time in the development of the human embryo, a time when it inherits
the reminiscence of the possibility of separating itself from its
mother and coming into the outer world.
The times, moreover, when birth is most liable are those few days in
each month which correspond to the regular menstrual flow in the woman,
the periods which would have taken place at each twenty-eight days
had not the child been developing. It is, therefore, often desirable,
particularly for the later months, for the woman to take one or two
days of complete rest, or even to remain in bed during that dangerous
day or two, so as to minimize the possibility of a miscarriage.
The same applies of course to some extent to the eighth month, but
curiously enough, miscarriages in the eighth month appear to be less
frequent. It is also popularly said that it is more difficult to rear
a child born in the eighth month than one born in the seventh, though
this does not appear to be true.
The last week or two of the child’s antenatal existence are used by
it in finishing itself off; growing its tiny shell-like nails, losing
the downy hair which covered its body earlier in its existence, and in
a sense preparing itself, and particularly its skin, for contact with
the outer world which is to come. Its movements are very active, and if
it is in the most perfect position, the head tends to sink deep down
towards the canal approaching the circle of bone through which it will
have to pass (see Chapter II).
The question is often asked as to which is the time when the embryo
is most sensitive to outward impressions, but as yet there is no
sufficient body of evidence to show that at any particular time more
than another (unless it be on the actual day of conception, see Chapter
II) is the power of influence greater than any other.
Is it possible to pre-arrange, to determine the sex of the child which
is voluntarily conceived? Since earliest human experiences have been
recorded, this has formed the theme of some writers and thinkers, and
a variety of opinions have been expressed, theories propounded, and
rules for the production of a girl or boy at will have been given. Each
of the views, however, still remains far from being established, and
damaging exceptions may be found to every theoretic rule. The impartial
observer must feel that we are still unable to control the sex of the
child.
There are three main theories on this subject: (_a_) one is that the
nature of the child which will be produced is already pre-determined
in the ovum and sperm cell before they have united; (_b_) the second
theory is that the critical moment which settles the sex of the
future offspring is the moment of fertilization and the changes in
the nucleus immediately resulting from it; (_c_) and the third theory
is based on the view that the differentiation of the organs, which
makes the difference in sex, take place at some stage in the embryo’s
development after it is already a many-celled organism.
The first named theory lies behind the advice which varies around the
theme that according to whether the conception takes place from the
egg cell grown in the right or the left ovary and testicle so will the
child be a boy or a girl. Instances of the desired child proving to be
of the sex “arranged for” by following out some such methods are of
comparatively frequent occurrence, but to the scientist are completely
counter-balanced by other and negative results.
The second and third theories do not offer the same explicit
application in practical advice. But all the practical advice, on
whatever basis it is builded, appears to me to be laid on insecure
foundations. In my opinion, the complexities of the factors which
determine sex are such that it depends much less on the outward
and visible nutrition of the mother, than on the inner and almost
inscrutable quality of the nutrition of the ovum and spermatozoon
before and immediately after fertilization has taken place.
That sex, even in some vertebrate creatures is actually controllable
through nutrition can be easily demonstrated with a batch of frogs’
eggs. These can be divided into two portions and by simple differences
in the feeding of the young tadpoles male or female frogs can be
obtained; the richly nourished ones produce the female frogs, those
on sparser diet the male. The human embryo, however, developing in
and through its mother, will depend to some extent on her diet, but
in a much less direct way, for, as all know, the actual nutrition of
the system does not depend merely on the quantity and valuable nature
of the food taken into the mouth; it depends equally or even more on
the digestive power, on the circulatory system, even on the mentality
of the person who eats, and to add still further to the complexity,
the tissues and organs of one part of the body may be receiving fully
sufficient nutriment, while owing to some hindrance or difficulty some
other tissues may be wasting and under-nourished. It is consequently
necessary before we can theorize, to determine, even in the healthiest
woman, whether or no a very rich and abundant nutriment is reaching the
developing embryo in its earliest and most critical days, for, on the
other hand, just in this critical time, a woman relatively ill-fed and
in relatively poorer health may be digesting her simple diet well and
may be so stimulated as to provide for the minute developing embryo
a richer and more nutritious environment than her better fed sister.
Consequently, even if, as I incline to believe, the pre-determination
of sex depends on the nutriment procurable by the early dividing cells
of the embryo, it is still almost beyond the realm of scientific
investigation or of human control to determine whether or not the
embryo is surrounded with such stimulating food as will produce a girl,
or the rather sparser diet which will produce a boy.