CredoScientia - The eighth-month fetus: classical sources for a modern superstition.

Une initiative de

Cet outil s'appuie sur PubMind

PubMind est une plateforme collaborative de veille scientifique qui permet d'importer des publications depuis PubMed, de suivre leur avancement de lecture, d'en extraire les éléments méthodologiques clés (protocoles, variables, résultats) et de constituer une synthèse structurée afin de faciliter la réalisation de revues de littérature. Entièrement personnalisable, cet outil s'adapte aux thématiques de recherche de ses utilisateurs.

Nous l'avons configuré ici pour centraliser et analyser la littérature scientifique concernant les croyances, les traitements psychologiques, l'étude de la scrupulosité, ainsi que l'impact et la prise en charge des troubles liés aux dérives sectaires.

Résumé

Among obstetric patients from diverse backgrounds, we found a superstition that the prognosis for preterm infants born at eight months' gestation is poorer than for those born at seven months. After several women on a high-risk inpatient unit spontaneously expressed fears caused by this belief, we investigated its origin. A treatise attributed to Hippocrates is devoted to the idea, which appears to have been current in the Greek world by the fifth century BC. The doctrine was elaborately developed by subsequent Greek physicians and philosophers. It appears in the Talmud and in medieval texts, as well as in early modern medical writings. The unquestioning citation of a dogma of the Ancients until modern times is a common phenomenon in medical history. The persistence of this ancient scientific doctrine as an "old wives' tale" causing inappropriate patient anxiety makes it interesting to the modern obstetrician.