Albuminuria of pregnancy is one of the terrors of the obstetrician. It is one of the great danger signals, one of the signs that the strain is telling on the mother, and through her on the child. It is the precuRsor of convulsions with all their horrors and anxieties.
The orthodox treatment consists of the taking of salts, drinking of large quantities of bland fluids to try to eliminate, the toxic materials, and the restriction of the diet to white foods, semi-solids or fluids, according to the severity of the case, in order to minimize the strain on the kidneys, those excretory organs which get rid of the body’s waste products. And yet, in different cases, I have seen APIS PLUMBUM, ACIDUM PHOSPHORICUM or TEREBINTHINA remove the albumin from the urine, without any purgation, and with the patient taking a full diet.
Constipation in pregnancy is a common trouble. Where it exist toxic absorption is bound to follow, and while it persists the patient is in danger of the severer complications due to infection by the Bacillus coil. The treatment of constipation has greatly improved during the last few years, but still leaves much to be desired. In the great majority of cases a few doses of NUX VOMICA, OPIUM or ALUMINA will put matters right, provided the mother’s diet is rational.
Diarrhoea in pregnancy is always a serious matter, and if not speedily relieved may lead to miscarriage. Is the allopathic administration of a dose of Olium ricini whether or not followed by intestinal sedative to be preferred to gentle action of a small dose of ALOE, PODOPHYLLUM or MERCURIUS with its instantaneous sense of relief?
Rubella, or German measles if acquired during pregnancy, especially during the first four months, may have an adverse effect on the unborn child. In the event of exposure to infection during pregnancy it would be wise to prescribe the RUBELLA NOSODE.
On the Mental Side the effects of morbid states in the mother have a very definite effect on the foetus. One has only to study the children of the war years to see what effects these can produce on the unborn child. The ordinary treatment consists of the administration of regular doses of bromide or more probably a barbiturate in the fond belief that it has no effect on the child, I have seen the child of a mother so treated covered with bromide rash, a sign of bromide poisoning, within a week of its birth. Surely there is more to be done than that!
The morbid depression will fade away after the judicious administration of PULSATILLA, AURUM or SEPIA.
Fears lose their terror under the action of ACONITUM NAPELLUS, ARSENICUM ALBUM, ARGENTUM NITRICUM, IGNATIA AMARA or one of the kindred drugs. Sleep returns to the weary mother helped by ACONITUM NAPELLUS, BELLADONNA, COFFEA CRUDA, NUX VOMICA etc. and the fright loses its evil effect under the sedative influences of ACONITUM NAPELLUS, IGNATIA AMARA, OPIUM, PHOSPHORUS, PULSATILLA NIGRICANS, etc. The mother’s nervous system has not been dulled, nor has the unborn infant been poisoned by any of these drugs.
Intercurrent Ailments
With the intercurrent ailments, influenzas, coughs, pneumonias, etc., to which all of us are prone, we have, in exaggerated form, the question of the relative value of homoeopathy and orthodox medicine in the treatment of acute disease.
The next factor seriously affecting the well-being of the child in its birth. Here there are great possibility of injury; unavoidable injury at the hands of most skilful attendant, due to the necessity for manipulation of instruments, or injury due to due to prolonged and difficult labour, without any outside interference. These injuries may be to limbs or, much more serious, may involve intracranial haemorrhages and consequent brain damage.
There are two problems to be considered here; How to avoid the risk, if possible; and what can be done for the infant who is suffering from the effects of a difficult labour.
It is an experience common to homoeopathic doctors everywhere, who are conducting a general practice, that their patients do not suffer from difficult labour. That does not prove anything, but it is a fortune fact for the patients. There are two factors which have a bearing on this happy experience; A pregnant woman who is treated throughout her pregnancy with homoeopathic medicine will approach her confinement freed from the physical and mental ailments which so often are factors in the production of an unsatisfactory confinement; and, there is a drug, CAULOPHYLLUM, which has the power of regulating the processes of labour, a fact which was known and used by homoeopaths many years ago, and is equally true to-day.
I have a patient, recently confined of her first child. Years ago her mother was given CAULOPHYLLUM before this patient was born. Now the patient herself was put on CAULOPHYLLUM before the birth of her child. During her confinement she was attended by an obstetrician of very wide experience. She had a large child and it was her first pregnancy, labour had started, and she was examined. The attending woman gynaecologist said that everything was going well, but that many hours must elapse before anything could be done to help, and went off home.
An Expected Coincidence
She got into her own door as the telephone bell rang, asking
her to return at once, and got back to the nursing home just in time to see the child born. The mother was saved trouble, forceps delivery, hours of suffering, and prolonged labour with its increased danger for the child. She had been taking some doses of CAULOPHYLLUM daily for a month before. Coincidence, perhaps, but a coincidence one has come to expect.
The unfortunate children, born after a difficult labour, fall roughly into two classes – the blue or asphyxiated, and the pale or collapsed.
The child with blue asphyxia has no mechanical obstruction, but he does not breathe. Surface stimulation does not produce the desired effect, or does this for a very short time only. Very soon the pulse begins to fail. Everyone is becoming anxious. Unpleasant thoughts begin to suggest themselves; thoughts of the mother and all she has just come through, thoughts of the father waiting for news, begin to force their way through. A dose of LAUROCERASUS and the whole scene is changed, the child breathes and then cries.
The pale, collapsed child is less dramatic and more pitiful. It lies limp, flaccid, cold. Its heart sounds are hardly to be heard. It is all but dead. Warmth, stimulants, friction, seem to produce no response. The child lies as one drowned. CARBO VEGETABILIS will give child back, alive, into its mother’s arms.
There is yet another condition sometimes met with. The child is born after some difficulty, and seems to be doing well, but in a few days it is reported to be not quite right. It may be that an arm or a leg is rather limp, is not used properly, or the face seems somewhat asymmetrical, or there is some difficulty in sucking. There has been some intracranial haemorrhage. ARNICA will help the absorption of the blood
and induce the maximum recovery of the damaged nerve tissue.
Now that the child has entered the world, the first consideration is the supply of suitable nourishment. Everyone is agreed that, where possible, breast-feeding is the ideal for the new-born infant. There are many mothers who with the best will in the world have been unable to nurse their babies.
The trouble may be due to scanty secretion, milk of low grade, or milk which is poisonous to the child, and this may persist in spite of all accessory measures which are employed to help matters. And yet BELLADONNA, PHYTOLACCA, or PULSATILLA is often all that is necessary to establish a free flow of healthy, nourishing milk; or CALCAREA or LAC DEFLORATUM all that is required to bring the milk which was so poor in quality up to the required standard; or NATRUM CARBONICUM, or SILICEA all that the mother needs to change her milk from poison to food.
Digestive Difficulties
In the first few months of life the difficulties with which one is liable to have to contend are mainly digestive. They take the form of inability to digest satisfactorily ordinary milk, as shown by vomiting, diarrhoea, or constipation. The amount of labour and skill which is expended in trying to find a suitable food mixture for the child with a delicate digestion is almost beyond belief. We are never without some such cases in hospital. And yet these infants, I should say without exception, go home taking a milk mixture, not a patent food.
They have been carefully fed, but in addition they have had homoeopathic treatment, which enables them to take normal food. I have lost count of the infants of whom it was said that milk upset them, and who have gone straight ahead on a milk diet with AETHUSA, SILICEA, NATRUM CARBONICUM or CALCAREA CARBONICUM. The vomiting ceases, the stools become normal, and the constipation disappears.
Of all the ailments of early life the most deadly is acute infantile diarrhoea. The number of its victims must run into thousands each year. I remember looking at an infant shortly after its admission to the ward with acute diarrhoea, and remarking that I did not like its chances. I was looked at with surprise, and greeted with the remark, “But we don’t lose acute diarrhoeas.” The statement was not strictly accurate, but a knowledge of the power of homoeopathic drugs does remove the dread with which one would otherwise approach an epidemic of these cases.
He wrote a number of books: Children's Types, Digestive Drugs, Pneumonias
Douglas Borland died November 29, 1960.