[Avodah] Pregnant women's sakana brought on by sense of smell

[Chana Luntz]

 I wrote:
> > I am by no means a medical type, but I have certainly been told that

> > fasting in late pregnancy can bring on labor (supposedly 
> the delivery rate at frum hospitals goes up around Yom Kippur).
> >
> CM responds:
> So what's your point. The halacha is that pregnant woman do 
> fast on Yom Kippur, they do not get a pass if everything is 
> running as a normal problem-free pregnancy.
> 

Agreed, but given the heightened risk, perhaps if a woman is then
showing some additional factor (in this case a particular craving to
eat) that suggests that she is no longer in the category of a normal,
problem-free pregnancy.


> > And certainly when I was 34 weeks with Yonit, and they 
> needed to do a  very minor medical procedure, which normally would
only 
> have involved,  at most, the practice nurse at my local doctor's
surgery, they 
> > insisted on hospitalising me for two days, on the grounds that 
> > "anything can set off labor at this stage" and they therefore wanted
me in for observation
> > "just in case".   34 weeks, of course today with modern 
> neo-natal units, is not very risky, but I imagine at the time of
chazal it 
> was, as the  lungs are generally not fully formed, and a baby born at
that time 
> > would generally need some form of breathing assistance initially.
> >
> CM responds:
> While what you say is without doubt true, it is off point. 
> What does this have to do with a condition wherein a pregnant 
> woman smells something and as a result is endangered unless she eats?
> 

The link is this:  in a normal problem free pregancy, nobody would have
suggested hospitalisation.  Without being pregnant, nobody would have
suggested hospitalisation, it was the combination of the two that led to
the recommendation for hospitalisation.

Similarly, given the known risk of early labor, given the known risk of
fasting bringing on labor, would not an above average craving for food
(which is presumably causing the woman some distress, it is unlikely to
get as far as a shialas chacham were it not) therefore be logically
considered an indication that the particular woman in question had a
higher risk factor of going into labor than the norm? 

The impression I have been given about distress and miscarriage/early
labor is that traumatic events can trigger miscarriage or early labor
because the body of the woman acts to protect the woman by jettisoning
the fetus in situations of danger.  Similarly, the body acts to protect
against pregnancy in such situations (so that women in famine stricken
areas who are starving are generally not fertile).  Fasting is, by
definition, a traumatic event, as it mimics famine conditions.  However,
one day is not sufficiently traumatic that it necessarily or even in the
vast majority of cases results in miscarriage/labor - ie the risk is
regarded as not sufficient to stop all pregnant women fasting on Yom
Kippur (although it is on the minor fasts).  But given the elevated
risk, it does not seem surprising to me that any woman who was showing
an abnormal reaction to food would thereby be considered to have crossed
the threshold into the sakana category, since arguably pregancy is
already a borderline case.

> Kol Tuv
> Chaim Manaster

Shabbat Shalom

Chana