Long was I hugg'd close-long and long. Immense have been the preparations for me, Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me. Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like friendly boatmen. For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings, They sent influences to look after what was to hold me. Before I was born out of my mother, generations guided me, My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it. -Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself" The womb is the seat of all mammalian life. In pregnancy, the uterus acquires this impor tance with the arrival of the fertilized egg, which...