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INFLUENCE OF PREGNANT PARABIOTIC PARTNERS ON TIME OF PARTURITION IN RATS

Although considerable information is accumulating concerning the endocrinology of parturition, the nature of the underlying stimulus controlling the onset of parturition remains obscure (for review see Marshall & Moir, 1952; Zarrow, 1961). The present study was undertaken to determine whether or not parabiosis would reveal the existence of a humoral factor which controls the onset of parturition. Earlier studies by Sauerbruch & Heyde (1910), Fels (1929) and Hill (1932) demonstrated that parturition is unaffected in a pregnant rat joined in parabiosis with a non-pregnant rat. Kross (1926) and Munemitsu & Segal (1959) reported no evidence of a disturbance in length of gestation or in parturition when two pregnant rats were placed in parabiosis. We reasoned that a humoral factor released as a stimulus to parturition in the rat might not cause the onset of parturition in its parabiotic