Second Exception.—It is scarcely necessary to advert to the well known fact that a woman may conceive while she is nursing, without any previous return of the monthly discharge, except to expose the popular error, “that a female will not become pregnant during lactation.” This is very far from being the case. Poor women are much in the habit of nursing their infants eighteen months, two years, and even two years and a half, in order to protect themselves, as they imagine, from becoming pregnant; and many a poor creature have I seen with exhausted frame and disordered general health, arising from protracted nursing, pursued alone from this mistaken notion.
I have large opportunities of investigating this, as well as the several points touched upon in this chapter. On an average, between forty and fifty poor women call upon me every month, with midwifery letters for attendance in their confinement: and the result of my inquiries upon the present question has led me to believe, that more than one third of these women have conceived at least once while nursing, and very many of them oftener.[[10]]
Mrs. M——, ætat. 30, married six years. Became pregnant three months after her marriage. Having suckled this child for more than two years, became pregnant a second time. This last died in three weeks, and immediately after she proved pregnant for a third time. The third child she brought this morning (being out of health), and assured me that she had not seen anything since she first conceived, that is, three months after her marriage, and six years from the present time.
Mrs. W——, ætat. 25, married five years. Has not been unwell since she first fell in the family way; is now pregnant with a third child, having hitherto fallen pregnant while nursing.
Many other cases illustrative of this fact I might assert, but these suffice to prove the exception.[[11]]
Third Exception.—That a female should become pregnant, and yet be unwell during the first three, four, or more months of pregnancy, may appear an extraordinary statement; but it is a fact, that the menstrual discharge sometimes continues in its usual regularity for two, three, or more months after conception, and without any dangerous consequences.
It has been asserted, as an objection, that this discharge is not truly menstruation; but the discussion of that question does not concern us here. We have only to consider, whether there does not frequently, during pregnancy, take place a discharge, so closely resembling menstruation in its periods, quantity, duration, and appearance, that neither the female herself nor her medical adviser shall be able to detect any difference between them; and of this I have no doubt.
It may occur once only after conception, either in diminished quantity or more profuse than usual. It may thus give rise to miscalculation as to the expected time of confinement.
It may continue in its usual regularity for two or three months. The following instance of a patient I attended illustrates the fact of its going on to the period of quickening:—
Mrs. R——, ætat. 27, married eight years. Was first unwell when eighteen years of age, and continued to be so regularly until she became pregnant, two years from the time of her marriage. She suckled her first child for eleven months; soon after she became unwell, and continued so until she quickened with her second child; a circumstance which she had not the slightest suspicion of, for there was no perceptible difference either in the quantity or appearance of the monthly discharge. During the remaining months of gestation she did not see anything; she afterwards suckled her little one for ten months; and then was obliged to wean the child, having an attack of the cholera. She continued from this time regular for two years; but meeting with a fall, much to her surprise, two or three days after, miscarried of a four months’ child. She is now pregnant again, having been regular every month till she quickened, and expects to be confined, Feb. 1836.