“Hannah went into labor sometime on December 24, 1642. It was the time of the full moon, and the baby was born an hour or two after midnight on Christmas morning. He was so frail that two women who attended Hannah were sent to obtain some medicine from a neighbor. Instead of hurrying, they sat down to rest on the way, thinking the child would already be dead. In the years to come Hannah would tell her son that he was so little when he was born that he would have fit into a quart pot. Moreover, he was too weak to hold his head upright for feeding and breathing. A special collar was fitted to his small neck to support his head; for a long time he remained very much below the size of children his own age.â€
References
Christianson, G. E. Isaac Newton. And the Scientific Revolution Oxford University Press, 1996.
Also republished in
Christianson, G. E. Isaac Newton. Lives and Legacies Oxford University Press, 2005.