Getting ready to be a mother

by Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom

Quite evidently, then, it means a great deal to the expectant mother to have the doctor discover and treat these complications before they have had time to become serious. But he can give early treatment only if he knows about the symptoms of the trouble when they first appear. Some of these symptoms may be detected by the expectant mother herself after they have been explained to her, but some of them can be discovered only by a doctor or a nurse. That is why it is important for the doctor to see his patient at frequent intervals during pregnancy; about once a month during the first half and every two weeks afterwards.

He sees her for much the same reasons that the housewife looks over the contents of her darning basket—not once and for all time, but regularly, once a week, over and over and over. She searches each time not for holes alone, but for thin places, too; an occasional broken thread or the beginning of a “run,” knowing how much trouble she will save herself, later on, by promptly repairing the smallest break or evidence of wear. She knows quite well that there are no more holes because she looks for them, than there are if she does not, and that failure to look for them will not keep the holes from being there nor from growing larger. No more does the expectant mother develop a complication because she is examined, nor does an existing condition cease to exist because she is not examined; and yet some women still take just that illogical attitude toward examinations and supervision during pregnancy.

One factor which keeps some expectant mothers from seeking medical care is the well-meaning but dangerous counsel so freely offered by older women who claim fitness to advise by virtue of having had several children of their own. Their lack of success, as evidenced by miscarriages, stillbirths, children dying in early infancy, as well as injuries and disabilities of their own, is usually overlooked as they press their superstitions and remedies upon the inexperienced and bewildered younger woman. When disaster follows, as it so often does, it is very likely to be ascribed to the will of God, and the mother’s needless sacrifice does not even serve as a warning to others who are in line for the same kind of advice.

Another obstacle to adequate prenatal care is sometimes found in the husband who considers it entirely reasonable to secure expert advice upon the subject of cattle-raising, let us say, or the care and running of his automobile or about his investments, but who has a conviction that it is normal and natural for women to have children without making what he considers a fuss about it. He may cherish, too, a suspicion that it is not altogether good for his wife to be thinking too much about her condition. His mother never began bothering until the baby came.

On the other hand, many husbands show the tenderest solicitude for their wives throughout pregnancy and would be only too eager to have them enjoy all the benefits of prenatal care, if they only knew and understood about it. The expectant mother will be wise, therefore, if she undertakes to convince her husband, if need be, that her occupation of bearing and rearing children merits quite the same thoughtful attention as his work, to which he devotes his best powers.

How easy and worth while this may be was demonstrated a couple of years ago at a county fair which was attended by a very intelligent farmer and his wife. The farmer was interested in hog-raising and both he and his wife accepted without question the fact that success in this enterprise could be achieved only through serious study and the most painstaking care. But as to childbearing, if they thought of it at all, they looked upon it as simply one of those natural functions which always had and doubtless always would take care of itself.

When this couple reached the fair the farmer entered one of his fine animals in a prize-winning contest and as there was a baby contest, too, the wife entered their little son. In due time the judges inspected the various contestants and it was found that point by point the farmer’s hog measured up to all of the standards of perfection for his kind and easily won the first prize. Not so with the baby; point by point he fell below even a moderate average of what a baby should be and was outranked by many of his more robust infant competitors.

As various admirers discussed hog-raising with the farmer, it became quite evident that he had carefully studied the question and had applied to his occupation the most approved methods of which he could learn. But when the doctors and nurses at the baby contest talked with the crestfallen mother about her baby, who had seemed right enough to her, they found that she knew little or nothing of the business of being a mother; that it had never occurred to her nor to her husband that she might profit by care and instruction about herself and her baby both before and after he was born. As might be expected, she had been unable to nurse him and on the whole he proved to be a pretty poor specimen of a baby, with a dismal outlook as to health.

Since the mother was then in an early stage of another pregnancy, the doctor talked it all over with her and her husband. He convinced them that such thoughtful and painstaking care as they had devoted successfully to hog-raising were equally effective when applied to baby-raising. As a result, the expectant mother, with her husband’s whole-hearted approval, placed herself under the care and supervision which she found were available through a prenatal clinic in her vicinity.

The happy sequel to that story is that when another fair was held, a year later, the farmer entered another one of his hogs and the wife her new baby, and that this baby held his own with the hog by taking a prize, too.