Non-invasive weight measurements

Haselhorst (1929) recorded infant weight changes during the period of placental transfusion, showing fluctuations between loss and gain during the period of strong pulsations of the umbilical arteries.  Strong pulsations are from the infant heart, pumping blood back to the placenta for oxygen, and following the exertion involved in being born, strong pulsations may be the equivalent of increased heart and respiratory rates following exercise.

Haselhorst's method was completely non-invasive, as he recorded the weights of all infants until pulsations ceased - until transition was complete from placental to pulmonary respiration.  In 20 babies, the average overall gain was 114 grams, with the greatest weight gain taking place in the first few minutes.  This approach fits the "do no harm" ethic far better than recent "randomized controlled trials" with human infants.

An earlier study by Haselhorst (1928a) involved early clamping of the cord in cases where the cord had broken, become knotted, or damaged in some other way.  He noted that the data gathered did not represent natural physiology, blood pressure changes on the placental side of the clamp with third stage contractions.  The effects of intravenous "hypophysin" were also observed on time of delivery of the placenta.

In another investigation, Haselhorst (1928b) measured blood pressure changes in the intact umbilical cord.  The cord was temporarily tied with a thin strip of rubber tubing, while the needle from the manometer was inserted in the umbilical vein to measure blood pressure from the placenta.   Measurements were made after the temporary tie was removed.  Blood flow into the infant continued for two to three minutes before tapering off.

Note: This is a work in progress -- I am not qualified to prepare a translation for any of the articles in French or German.  Reading and summarizing the results takes time.  Haselhorst provides many other useful references to the older literature, which I will continue to try to locate and read.

Also, this tiny laptop does not have accents and umlauts.  I will fix this after I get the software upgraded.