TREATMENT AFTER DELIVERY.
After-pains.—Soon after delivery these usually come on, and with some women prove remarkably severe. The quicker the labor has been, the slighter will they prove in general. Women with their first child are seldom much troubled with after-pains; but as the uterus is thought to contract less readily after each future labor, so they are more liable to suffer from them in any succeeding delivery than in the first.
When after-pains prove so troublesome as to deprive the patient of her rest, it will be necessary to have recourse to fomentations or anodynes; red pepper and spirits, simmered together a few minutes, and flannels dipped in it and applied to the belly, will generally relieve them; if it fails, apply a fomentation of bitter herbs, and give two teaspoonfuls of the tincture of hops in milk or tea. If these fail, which I never knew, give half a teaspoonful of capsicum in milk. These remedies are to be assisted by keeping up a sufficient pressure on the belly at the same time by means of a broad bandage.