Arrow-root, tapioca, sago, panada, or rice milk, constitute a proper regimen. If the process be protracted, and the strength much impaired, the diet may be more liberal. In every case, ripe fruit is safe and useful. The bowels are to be kept regular, and sleep, if necessary, is to be procured by an anodyne.
Prevention.
It requires great attention to prevent abortion in subsequent pregnancies, whenever it has happened.
In all such cases, it will be highly necessary to attend to the usual habitudes and constitution of the woman, and to remove that condition which is found to dispose to abortion.
A woman that is subject to miscarriage, and who is of a full plethoric habit, ought to take the tincture of foxglove, twice or thrice a day, for two or three weeks.
She should likewise keep her body perfectly open with gentle aperient medicines, use a spare diet, and avoid all agitations of the mind. The sleep should be abridged in quantity, and taken on a mattress, instead of a feather bed. Regular and moderate exercise should be taken daily, being cautious, at the same time, not to carry it to the length of exciting fatigue.
In women of a weak, lax habit, a nutritive and generous diet, moderate exercise, and tonic medicines, will be required. And, along with nourishing diet, a moderate use of wine should be allowed, if it do not heat the patient, or otherwise disagree. The cold bath is of signal service in every instance where it is not followed by chilliness.
Until gestation be far advanced, it would be advisable for the woman to sleep alone, and strictly avoid every cause which is ascertained to be capable of producing abortion.
Women more frequently miscarry in the second or third month than at any other time; but some have a certain period at which they usually go wrong, and do not vary a week from it. In such cases, the woman should confine herself to the house, avoid the least exercise, and frequently recline on the sofa or bed, till that period be past.
When a female has suffered several abortions, it becomes almost impossible to prevent a repetition at the same period of gestation in a subsequent pregnancy. Nothing, however, will be so successful in preventing a recurrence of a similar misfortune, as in allowing the uterine vessels to recover their tone; for which purpose tonics must be given. Attend to particular symptoms as they occur; with proper diet and exercise. Sea Bathing and the shower bath are both excellent.[[46]]