-This is the state of a women from the time of conception to the time of delivery. The duration of the period is 280 days. If it terminates before this period, and yet late enough for a living child to be born, the birth is spoken of as premature. If the birth occurs earlier than this it is called a miscarriage, and if within the first three months it is generally spoken of as an abortion. Before birth the child is called the embryo, or foetus.
Calculation of the Date of Delivery.- The duration of pregnancy is, as has just been stated,280 days, or forty weeks. The best way of calculating is to take the last day of the last menstrual period, and calculate from that nine calendar months. To this add one week. On the previous page will be found the full obstetric table.
Quickening is the name given to the first occasion on which the mother becomes conscious of the independent movements of the child. This is felt about the fifteenth week after conception. It is often accompanied by fainting on the part of the mother, especially if it is the first pregnancy.
The Signs of pregnancy are chiefly these:-Stopping of the periods, increase in the size of the body, morning nausea, vomiting, increase in size of breasts, and darker appearance of the areolae round the nipples. But it should be borne in mind that all these symptoms may occur in connection with diseases of the womb, without there being any child. The only absolute sign is the child’s heart-beat, which a practised ear can hear on listening over the woman’s abdomen in the later months of pregnancy.
General Management of pregnancy.-Some women experience better health during the period of pregnancy than at any other time, but it is more general for women to suffer various inconveniences, if not actual disease, during some part or other of the term. Every woman should regard the care of her health as of the utmost importance, as any indiscretion will be visited not on herself alone, but on her child. There is no need for her to be idle and consider herself an invalid, but excesses of all kinds she must avoid-fatiguing and violent exercise, heavy lifting, indulgence in the pleasures of the table.
Diet.-This should be of a plain, wholesome, and nourishing kind, all alcoholic stimulants being avoided; also strong tea, coffee, spices, high seasoning, rich food, sweets, and pastry. It should be taken at regular times. Oatmeal porridge, whole-meal bred, and other bone producing foods should be taken with milk.
Sleep.-It is highly important that the woman should have plenty of sleep. She requires more than when in an ordinary state. She should retire early;the bedroom should be well-ventilated, should not have very much furniture, and the bed should have no hanging. Then the woman must be allowed to sleep as long as she feels the necessity, and rise when she wakes naturally.
Bath.-She may do as she usually does about bathing; the morning cold bath or sponge down, if she is hardly and used to it, will do good, but she must beware of straining herself on getting into or out of the bath
Dress.-This is a matter of the greatest importance. Stays must be either of a special kind, which give free play to the movements of the ribs, or must be discarded altogether. This is necessary for many reasons. The mother has to do a double amount of breathing- for herself and her child-and it is therefore important that there must be nothing to hamper the movements of the chest-wall and the diaphragm to diminish the breathing space. Nature made the ribs movable, from the first to the last, and also the abdominal walls movable and muscular. Stays have the effect of fixing the lower ribs, limiting the breathing space, and crowding the abdominal organs into half their natural space. Stays are accountable for weak backs (Which ought to be strong enough to hold themselves up)and a multitude of other ailments, among them all kinds of displacements, constipation, and piles.
I am aware the great difficulty is how to fit on the clothes is stays are discarded. They must be hung from the shoulders and from the hips. The shoulders may bear the upper half of the garment, and the hips-not the soft part above the hip-bones, but the hip-bones themselves-by a broad belt made to fit to the bones, or the skirts themselves may be made to fit them. From the hip-bones down to the hip-joints the bones spread outwards, so as to bear any amount of weight. On no part of the body should the clothes press tightly. Garters must give place to suspenders. The clothes must be suited to the season, and warm enough to guard against chills. A great weight of clothes is objectionable.
