Carrying a child · huai zi

At a glance

Pinyin

huái zǐ

Simplified

怀子

Literal

懷 huái — to carry, to hold in the bosom, to cherish; 子 zǐ — child. The binome is the ordinary way the texts say that a woman is pregnant, and chapter 40 uses it in the Suwen's shortest and most quoted diagnostic rule: 身有病而無邪脉也 — the body has the illness and yet there is no deviant pulse. The question asked is not whether she is carrying but whether she is about to give birth, and the answer is a principle rather than a sign: in pregnancy the pulse does not testify against the body. The rule is the ancestor of the later doctrine that a pregnant woman may show the signs of illness and yet not be ill, and it is the reason the chapter can put pregnancy next to counterflow and heat without treating it as a disease. The graph 懷 is the same one used for carrying thoughts and grievances; the texts carry children the way they carry anything else.

Shuowen

《說文解字》：懷，念思也——**本義為思念、為懷抱**，**引申為凡在身、在心者，懷子在焉**；子，十一月陽气動，萬物滋——**本義為孳乳之子**。「懷」讀 huái、**本篇1見**；「子」讀 zǐ，**本篇2見**（懷子一、「夫子」一）；**「懷子」1見**。「身」讀 shēn、**本篇2見**；「病」讀 bìng、**本篇23見**；「無」讀 wú、**本篇1見**；「邪」讀 xié、**本篇1見**；「脉」讀 mài，**本篇2見，不作「脈」**；「且」讀 qiě**「且生」讀 qiě**。