Birth
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary · Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
The act of being wholly brought into the world. The conditions of live birth are not satisfied when a part only of the body is born. The whole body must be brought into the world, and detached from that of the mother, and after this event the child must be alive.
5 Car. & P. 329; 7 Car. & P. 814.
The circulating system must also be changed, and the child must have an independent circulation.
5 Car. & P. 539; 9 Car. & P. 154.
But it is not "necessary that there should have been a separation of the umbilical cord. That may still connect the child with its mother, and yet the killing of it will constitute murder.
7 Car. & P. 814; 9 Car. & P. 25. See 1 Beck,' Med. Jur. 478; 1 Chit. Med. Jur. 438.