3. No more weight than is essential for warmth, and both weight and warmth evenly distributed.
These requirements necessitate looseness, lightness and warmth, which can be obtained from the union under-clothes, a princess skirt and dress, with a shoe that allows full development and use of the foot. While decoration and elegance are desirable, they should not sacrifice comfort and convenience.
Let the diet be light, plain and nutritious. Avoid fats and sweets, relying mainly upon fruits and grains that contain little of the mineral salts. By this diet bilious and inflammatory conditions are overcome, the development of bone in the fetus lessened, and muscles necessary in labor nourished and strengthened.
Exercise should be sufficient and of such a character as will bring into action gently every muscle of the body; but must particularly develop the muscles of the trunk, abdomen and groin, that are specially called into action in labor. Exercise, taken faithfully and systematically, more than any other means assists assimilative processes and stimulates the organs of excretion to healthy action.
Bathing must be frequent and regular. Unless in special conditions the best results are obtained from tepid or cold bathing which invigorates the system, and overcomes nervousness. The sitz-bath is the best therapeutic and hygienic measure within the reach of the pregnant woman.
Therefore, to establish conditions which will overcome many previous infractions of law, dress naturally and physiologically; live much of the time out of doors; have abundance of fresh air in the house; let exercise be sufficient and systematic; pursue a diet of fruit, rice and vegetables; regular rest must be faithfully taken; abstain from the sexual relation. To those who will commit themselves to this course of life, patiently and persistently carrying it out through the period of gestation, the possibilities of attaining a healthy, natural, painless parturition will be remarkably increased.
If the first experiment should not result in a painless labor, it, without doubt, will prove the beginning of sound health. Persisted in through years of married life, the ultimate result will be more and more closely approximated, while there will be less danger of post partum diseases; and better and more vigorous children will be produced.
Then pregnancy by every true woman will be desired, and instead of being a period of disease, suffering and direful forebodings, will become a period of health, exalted pleasure and holiest anticipations. Motherhood will be deemed the choicest of earth’s blessings; women will rejoice in a glad maternity, and for any self-denial will be compensated by healthy, happy, buoyant, grateful children.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in a lecture to ladies, thus strongly states her views regarding maternity and painless parturition: “We must educate our daughters to think that motherhood is grand, and that God never cursed it. That the curse, if it be one, may be rolled off, as man has rolled away that of labor; as it has been rolled from the descendants of Ham. My mission among women is to preach this new gospel. If you suffer, it is not because you are cursed of God, but because you violate his laws. What an incubus it would take from woman could she be educated to know that the pains of maternity are no curse upon her kind. We know that among the Indians the squaws do not suffer in childbirth. They will step aside from the ranks, even on the march, and return in a short time bearing with them the new-born child. What an absurdity, then, to suppose that only enlightened Christian women are cursed.
“But one word of fact is worth a volume of philosophy; let me give you some of my own experience. I am the mother of seven children. My girlhood was spent mostly in the open air. I early imbibed the idea that a girl is just as good as a boy, and I carried it out. I would walk five miles before breakfast, or ride ten on horseback. After I was married, I wore my clothes sensibly. Their weight hung entirely on my shoulders. I never compressed my body out of its natural shape. When my first four children were born, I suffered very little. I then made up my mind that it was totally unnecessary for me to suffer at all; so I dressed lightly, walked every day, lived as much as possible in the open air, ate no condiments, and took proper care of myself. The night before the birth of the child I walked three miles. The child was born without a particle of pain. I bathed it and dressed it myself, and it weighed ten and one-half pounds. The same day I dined with the family. Everybody said I would surely die, but I never had a moment’s inconvenience from it. I know this is not being delicate and refined, but if you would be vigorous and healthy, in spite of the diseases of your ancestors, and your own previous disregard of nature’s laws, try it.”