Dr. J. King, in his work on Obstetrics, speaks of attending cases where there was no sensation of pain.
He found that by placing the hand upon the abdomen, the muscular contractions were distinctly felt, and examination proved the progress of labor, while, excepting a suppressed breath, the patient experienced no change from the ordinary condition.
Some very marked cases have come to my own knowledge proving the possibility of painless labor. I attended a neighbor of mine in four different confinements. I never was able to reach her before the birth of the child, although I lived only across the street, and according to her injunctions, always kept my shoes “laced up.” She sent for me, too, at the first indication of labor. There was always one prolonged effort and the child was expelled. The heads of her children were temporarily distorted, showing pliability of the osseous structure.
Another lady patron had two children without a particle of pain. With the first she was alone with her nurse. During the evening she remarked that she felt weary and believed that she would lie down. She had been on the bed no more than twenty minutes when she called to her nurse, saying: “How strangely I feel! I wish you would see what is the matter,” when to their astonishment the child was already born.
Two years later I was summoned to the same lady about ten at night. The membranes were ruptured, but no other visible indication of labor. Investigation revealed dilatation of the cervix and although she soon fell into a quiet slumber, I noticed regular and distinct contractions. The child was born about two in the morning without any sensation of pain. I have no doubt that in her previous confinement the contractions went on the same, and if she had been one to mark her symptoms closely, she would have felt them as one feels muscular contractions in the performance of other natural functions.
The cases that have been cited, so far as is known, were persons in excellent health, and some were persons of exceptionally fine and strong constitutions. Dr. Holbrook in his “Parturition without Pain,” says: “Those women of savage nations who bear children without pain live much in the open air, take much exercise, and are physically active and healthy to a degree greatly beyond their more civilized sisters. These instances tend directly to prove that parturition is likely to be painless in proportion as the mother is physically perfect and in a sound condition of health. They certainly tend even more strongly to prove that pain is not an absolute necessity attendant on parturition.
“The course of modern scientific investigation, moreover, has gone far to justify a belief that this terrific burden upon humanity can be almost entirely removed, and that the pain can be as completely done away with as the danger and disfigurement from small-pox. At the same time, this immeasurable benefit to humanity cannot be obtained without proper use of means, and the continuance of such use for a considerable period.
“The doctrine of the ablest thinkers on the subject will be found to agree in this: That it is the previous life of the mother—the whole of it, from her birth to the birth of the child—which almost entirely determines what her danger, her difficulty, and her pain during childbirth shall be. Her easy or difficult labor, in fact, is almost entirely her own work. Her conduct during gestation, it is true, is more immediately influential in the result than remoter periods, and bears more greatly upon the future life of her offspring than even upon herself.”
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes once said that he believed that any disease, no matter how virulent, how malignant or how deep-seated, whether it was cancer, consumption or cholera, any disease could be cured if the physician was called in time. But with his wonted humor he added: “There are cases in which the physician should be called at least two hundred years in advance.”
With Dr. Holmes, I believe it will take many years to eradicate diseased conditions which are the heritage of this generation, and thus to produce men and women of physical perfection. Science has proven, however, that any woman possessing sufficient vitality to make procreation possible, can do much, even during pregnancy, to alleviate the sufferings of that period, as well as the final throes of travail. Pain and suffering have so long been the customary attendant upon the maternal functions, that many are slow to believe they can ever be alleviated. Painless childbirth is thought to be an impossibility. The reader is begged to lay aside all previous prejudices, and it is believed that when this volume has been thoroughly studied he will be convinced that women in bearing offspring should furnish no exception to the laws of nature, and that pregnancy and parturition may and ought to be devoid of suffering.