Abstract
I am delighted to be asked to prepare this chapter on fetal breathing movements since it was a German obstetrician, von Ahlfeld (1888), who more than a century ago recorded what he deduced (correctly we now know) to be human fetal breathing movements from the maternal abdomen. The fact that many of his contemporaries, and others in subsequent generations, had doubts about his conclusions is irrelevant. I first learned of his work through Bill Windle (Windle 1940), with whom I later worked 1958–1965, speculated (Dawes 1968) that the last word on this subject had not yet been said, and was led to restudy the subject in 1969. This pursuit of knowledge has led my colleagues and me a fascinating dance ever since.
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Dawes, G.S. (1992). Fetal Breathing Movements in Normoxia and in Hypoxia. In: Künzel, W., Kirschbaum, M. (eds) OXYGEN: Basis of the Regulation of Vital Functions in the Fetus. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-77469-0_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-77469-0_5
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