Pinard – Hygiène de la femme enceinte. De la puériculture intra-utérine – English summary

Pinard, M. A.: Hygiène de la femme enceinte. — De la puériculture intra-utérine, 1900. 10th Congrès International d’Hygiène et Démographie, Paris. Source: Cnum.

This paper was delivered at the Xe Congrès international d’hygiène et de démographie (Paris, 1900), part of a three-part session: Comby on puériculture before conception, Pinard on the intra-uterine phase, Budin on after birth. Internally it’s anchored to 1900 — the birth-weight series runs “from 1822 to 1899,” and it cites theses of 1898–99.

Summary of the report

Pinard frames puériculture as three chapters — before conception, conception to birth, after birth — and takes the middle one: the hygiene of the pregnant woman. His premise is that intra-uterine life is a purely vegetative existence wholly dependent on the maternal “terrain,” so the mother’s conditions act continuously and directly on the developing child; unlike oviparous incubation (governed mainly by heat), the viviparous mother supplies lodging and nourishment too.

He then argues empirically. Weighing every infant born at the Maternité (1822–1899) and at Baudeloque — 188,204 births — he finds 72,626 weighed under 3,000 g and 29,071 were premature under 2,500 g. He pre-empts the obvious objection (that birth weight just tracks parental size): parental height, he says, can explain the more but not the less — small mothers do not reliably bear small infants. His proof is that 100 symphyseotomized women (mostly below average height, some achondroplastic dwarfs) produced infants averaging 3,358 g, echoed by Olshausen’s cesarean cases (a 111 cm, 29 kg dwarf delivering a normal 3,000 g infant).

The “common, powerful, dangerous” cause that prematurely detaches the sound-but-unripe fruit, in otherwise healthy mothers, is surmenage — overwork, aggravated by the upright bipedal stance. The demonstration rests on rest-versus-work comparisons: his own 1895 series (500 worked-to-term vs 500 rested-and-cared-for); F.-C. Bachimont’s 1898 thesis tabulating birth weight by maternal work posture and rest duration across 4,455 observations at Baudeloque and Tourcoing — yielding his headline claim that an infant of a woman rested two to three months weighs at least 300 g more than one whose mother worked standing to term; Alexandre Bachimont’s 1899 twin series (rested mothers’ twins ~2,500/2,480 g versus non-rested ~1,935/1,910 g); and Sarraute Lourié’s 1899 thesis showing gestation ran 20 days longer in 1,550 rested women than in 1,550 non-rested.

He then turns on the incubator program directly. The premature mortality at the Maternité’s débiles service (the “model establishment,” spared neither science, devotion, nor money) he tabulates 1893–1899, mortality climbing from 41% to 65–71%: of 2,961 infants, 1,795 died, mean stay barely a month. And survivors, he asserts “without fear of contradiction,” remain débiles or infirm for life — invoking breeders who never raise a foal or calf prematurely, and claiming the premature nervous system stays forever incompletely developed. A footnote dates the service’s direction: Mme Henry (20 July 1893 – 1 Jan 1895), Budin (to 1 March 1898), then Porak (to 1 Jan 1900) — a clean primary corroboration of the Henry/Budin/Porak succession. His conclusion and resolution: “Every salaried woman has the right to rest during the last three months of her pregnancy.”

Summary of the discussion

Dr A. Laurent (Rouen) objects that “rest” understates the target, which is surmenage; he warns against the opposite vice of affluent women taking to the sofa and bearing delicate children, holds moderate work beneficial, and wants the burden placed on employers — proposing an addition obliging anyone employing a pregnant woman to reduce her work.

Dr Berthod — almost certainly Paul Berthod, author of the 1887 couveuse-et-gavage thesis you just read — pushes back twice. First he asks Pinard to retract the claim that prematures are forever infirm, noting that we all know former prematures who are perfectly sound, and asking pointedly what the public will conclude about the couveuse, gavage, and all the elaborate means recommended for prematures if such exquisite care only produces invalids. Second, he opposes the resolution as unrealizable: a right to rest implies a sanction — a pension or guaranteed assistance for all salaried women, not just the indigent — plus six weeks post-partum, an impossible budgetary charge given that hospitals and private maternal-assistance works are insufficient or embryonic; he’d cap it at a month or six weeks and asks Pinard to soften. That is a documented disagreement inside Tarnier’s own circle — two men from your group photograph — Pinard dismissing the incubator enterprise, Berthod defending it. Worth not flattening.

Dr Drouineau urges a general formula suitable to an international congress, notes a French draft law on maternal assistance (the “maternités-ouvroirs”) already moving, and counsels adopting the principle and awaiting the future. Dr Boury (Nesle) wants the burden graded — pre-delivery rest for women in arduous work, less for teachers and postal/railway employees, offset by longer post-partum leave to limit cost.

Pinard yields nothing. “Rest” cannot be mistaken — he asks not immobility but an end to overwork; the three-month window is essential, since resting in the ninth month is futile if surmenage already forced delivery at seven or eight; the measure must be general, with no occupational distinction; he declines Laurent’s amendment (the section’s job is to say what to do, not how); and he will not soften the line on prematures — yes, some become strong, intelligent men, he could even name a premature who is a professor in the faculty, but that is the exception and people must know it. The section then adopts his resolution verbatim.

Citation:

Pinard, A. “Hygiène de la femme enceinte. — De la puériculture intra-utérine” (rapport), suivi de discussion (MM. Laurent, Berthod, Drouineau, Boury, Pinard). In Xe Congrès international d’hygiène et de démographie à Paris en 1900 […]. Compte rendu publié par le secrétariat général du congrès. Paris: Masson et Cie, 1900, pp. [≈417]–425.

Volume:

Xe Congrès international d’hygiène et de démographie à Paris en 1900 tenu [à partir du 10 août]. Compte rendu publié par le secrétariat général du congrès. Paris: Masson et Cie, 1900. 1 vol. ([4]–1070 p.), 24 cm.

Permanent URL https://cnum.cnam.fr/redir?8XAE479; CNAM shelfmark 8 Xae 479; SUDOC notice https://www.sudoc.fr/025529560.

Last Updated on 07/06/26