In the Ladies Dictionary,1 printed in London in 1694, one finds the following answer to the question above: Infants crying in the Wombs of their Mothers, have occasioned various discourses among the Learned, as to its Signification, but in this they differ; however, it is a thing very unusual, and therefore strange; Sorrow indeed is incident to mankind, and we begin it with Weeping before we know what it means but that is very rare, till we come to breath in the open Air; now whether such untimely Cryings may signify something extraordinary in the Course of Life; or that Provident Nature would have them Practice in the dark Cell of Generation, what they shall afterwards seldom want so long as they enjoy the Light, viz; Sorrow and Affliction we undertake not to determine; but such Relations of those little Prisoners that have been heard to cry in those close Apartments [sic] take as we find them in credible Histories. In Holland, a Woman had a Child cryed [sic] and bemoaned it self [sic] in her Womb with little intermission for the space of fifteen days. In Leyden, a gentlewoman being in Bed with her husband on a suddain [sic] hearing the Child cry in her Womb was greatly terrified, so that in two days after she fell in labour, though she expected to go a great while longer. In Rathstadt, a town in the Norwick Alps, a Child was heard to cry in his mothers [sic] Womb fourteen days before it was born.