Score on Malformation

That the first child conceived by a woman is more apt to be malformed, than her subsequent children is a belief common among parents. Though the ratio of malformed first-born to normal first-born is so small as to discredit this belief on its face, the explanation usually advanced is that a woman needs practice in conception and child bearing, that she must ripen before her womb bears perfect fruit.

Last week the belief was further discredited when, as a result of questioning the parents of 582 malformed children born in Philadelphia. Drs. Douglas Power Murphy & Milton Mazer concluded that the most numerous spoilage of the family tree does not occur among firstborn. By means of analytical charts published in the American Medical Association Journal those Philadelphia physicians demonstrated that in large families the eldest four are usually the soundest. The fifth and sixth are occasionally malformed. Women who have been pregnant nine or more times produce three times as many errors as does the average woman.

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