throopw@rtp47.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (08/02/85)
> _Time_Enough_for_Love_ by Heinlein had an interesting scene involving a > delivery aboard a spaceship. So far so good. But I have a few relatively unimportant points to clarify below. > For the most part, travel took place in zero g, Nope, the trip was all in 1-G "comfort"... artificial gravity don't y'know. > but during the delivery Lazarus Long (the protagonist of the whole book, > I don't remember the woman's name but I think she was his current wife) She was simply a passenger. Lazarus had liberated her and her genetically unrelated twin brother (trust me) from slavery on an unsavory planet. > fired the ships rockets (actually I think they were variable thrusters > so that the transition was smooth) He boosted the artifical gravity to 2 Gs over a period of a couple of seconds. > at the appropriate moment so that the baby, in effect, had a > "gravity assist." This is the crucial point, and is quite correct. However, this was *not* an assist for a zero-g delivery, but rather a convenience for a normal delivery in a squatting position. At some convenient moment after dialation, the gravity was increased to ease and shorten the labor. It isn't totally clear whether 2 Gs during delivery would be a good idea or not, but is a facinating possibility for assisting a difficult delivery (or even a normal one, I suppose) without using forceps. -- Wayne Throop at Data General, RTP, NC <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!rtp47!throopw