Abstract
Experiments designed to compare the energy metabolism of mother and child just previous to and immediately following parturition were carried out with the bed calorimeter. Three subjects were secured through the out-patient department of the McLean Lying-in Hospital. They were cared for in the New England Deaconess Hospital near the laboratory and were kept on a carefully regulated diet, which, except for the day of parturition and one or two days thereafter, was essentially the same throughout for each case. Early in the morning before breakfast was taken, the subjects were brought to the laboratory (in an ambulance when necessary) and were placed in the calorimeter for periods of two or three hours during which hourly determinations of the carbon dioxide output, the oxygen absorption, the heat elimination and the heat production were made.
The heat production was calculated also by the Zuntz method from the amount of nitrogen in the urine, the carbon in the expired air and the oxygen absorbed. A very satisfactory agreement was found between the two methods.
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