Emotional Factors in the Course of Pregnancy†

Abstract

1. Both of these patients were of superior intelligence; both scorned their mothers and identified themselves with their fathers; both were frustrated in their careers; both were frigid (although both recovered after adjustment to parenthood); and both were concerned about the sex of the baby. These four factors have been found in a number of other patients who have the pattern of abortion, premature delivery or stillbirth. 2. Both patients had pathology or a physiological variant, although of questionable significance. In the first case the discovery would not have been made without the appendectomy. In the second case the lesion disappeared without surgical intervention and without the patient's awareness of its existence. The obstetrician commented that this is an interesting example of physiology which often was misinterpreted by the older school of surgeons who relied on, and practiced, extirpation. 3. Both patients had bleeding and gastrointestinal symptoms, including nausea, vomiting and colitis, during earlier pregnancies, but these symptoms were notably absent in a later pregnancy during psychosomatic treatment. 4. Whatever may be the internal or external agents predisposing to abortion, it appears from these histories and from other unpublished material that some persons develop an abortion habit just as others develop an accident habit, and that this habit may be interrupted by well-directed psychosomatic treatment.