Quickening.—The involuntary movements of the child occur from the eighteenth to the twentieth week. Sometimes these motions begin as early as the third month, and then are a feeble fluttering only, causing disagreeable sensations of faintness and nausea. The “motion” of the child is regarded by women, especially if they have previously borne children, as an unfailing sign. But cases are common where the throbbing in a tumor, or the peristaltic action accompanying flatulence has been mistaken for fetal movements.
Unless the motion is very marked, quick, elastic and distinct, it alone cannot be relied upon as a diagnostic symptom. Taken together with other signs it aids both physician and patient to a positive conclusion.
The fetal heart beat.—The sign by which physicians can with certainty determine pregnancy is by noting the difference between the beating of the fetal and maternal hearts. The ordinary pulse of a woman is from 70 to 80 per minute, while that of the fetus is from 120 to 140.
Auscultation through a stethoscope will reveal this fact, and thus give a certain diagnosis. If it is a throbbing or pulsating in a tumor it would be synchronous with the maternal cardiac action. This symptom is not of much value till after the fourth month. By that time, if a physician’s ear is educated to fine discriminations, he will never make a mistake in his diagnosis.
I can not leave this subject without urging upon women the necessity of educating their own fingers to judge of the heart’s actions by the radial pulse. Get your physician to tell you and study in your books the meaning of a quick, a throbbing, a slow, a weak, feeble or wiry pulse. It is one of the surest guides to abnormal conditions, and is a great aid to nurses in the administration of remedial measures, besides often determining the necessity of medical aid. In my conversations with women, often in an audience of one hundred ladies, I find none who know even the frequency of the normal pulse.
The enlargement of the breasts at about the third month, the secretion of a fluid in them, also the darkening of the areola around the nipples are of frequent or usual attendance upon gestation—but not always; consequently of themselves can not be taken as diagnostic symptoms.
The pathological symptoms are more numerous. Indeed, almost any symptom accompanying any disease may attend gestation. This is a sad reflection upon our enlightened civilization. Were it not for this, Tokology would have no special mission. The facts now are that with most American women the 280 days of pregnancy are days of disease and suffering. The inconvenience, the discomfort and the pains attendant upon this condition, together with the dread of the final throes of travail, transform this period, which should be one of hope, of cheerfulness, of exalted pleasure, into days of suffering, wretchedness, and direful forebodings. It is one long night-mare, and child-bearing is looked upon as a curse and not a blessing. Motherhood is robbed of its divinest joys.
Dr. Cowan says: “The period of pregnancy should be one of increased health, rather than increased disorders. The mother who has hitherto led a true life, will, during this period, experience an exhilaration of spirits, a redundancy of health and cheerfulness of mind that is not to be enjoyed at any other time.” Alas! how few have this experience.
Ordinarily pregnancy is classed both by physicians and women among the diseases. Physical sufferings and mental agonies are the common accompaniments of the condition. Murderous intent fills the mother’s heart, and the fearful crime of feticide is daily committed.
Do physicians offer any relief for this state of things? It is a lamentable fact that most do not. In one of my conversational lectures a lady testified that for seven months before her child was born she never knew one hour’s relief from nausea—that she was not conscious of retaining any nourishment upon her stomach, and that no day elapsed without vomiting blood. No words can describe her sufferings through all those dreadful weeks, even up to the hour of delivery. She consulted three different physicians, and each one told her nothing could be done except to wait for “nature’s relief.” She went home in despair and suffered to the end. When she heard the theories I teach, with suppressed emotion she exclaimed: “Thank God for the hope you give. To my dying day I shall use my feeble voice to promulgate these truths, that others may not grope in the valley as I have done.”