Getting ready to be a mother

by Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom

So sincerely do doctors now believe in the urgency of having all maternity patients under supervision and care during the nine months before the baby comes and the first several weeks afterwards, that they not only care for those women who come to their offices, but also give of their knowledge and skill to organizations engaged in prenatal and maternity work. These organizations may be visiting nurse associations, prenatal clinics, health centers or dispensaries. As the doctors are assisted by nursing staffs they are able to offer protection, through these channels, to a very large number of mothers and babies.

Among the women who are cared for by such organizations, or by doctors in their private practice, there is an enormous reduction in the occurrence of convulsions, for example, abortions, miscarriages, stillbirths, infections (childbed fever), and prolonged and difficult labors. Or, to put it the other way round, good care started during early pregnancy and continued throughout labor and the lying-in period gives both mother and baby enormously increased chances to live and enjoy good health. One reason why the baby is so much better off is that good care practically always enables his mother to nurse him, for, except in extremely rare cases when there is a definite physical disability, as tuberculosis for example, every mother can nurse her baby if she really wants to and if she, the doctor and nurse bend all their energies to accomplish this happy end. A baby who is not breast-fed is defrauded of a protection which is rightfully his, and usually because someone has failed to do all in his or her power.

Organizations which include doctors and nurses who can give skilled care to maternity patients are increasing in scope and number throughout cities, towns and rural districts in all parts of the country. This makes us hope that before long good care during pregnancy, childbirth and young motherhood will be available to every woman in the land. But quite as earnestly do we also hope that every woman in the land who is looking forward to motherhood will seek this care. Certain it is that the expectant mother who does seek care, whether from a doctor in his office or through a prenatal clinic, is approaching her motherhood in the only way that is safe for herself and her baby. She should realize, however, that although the doctors can accomplish a great deal through examinations and advice, they can give the full benefits of their skill only to those women who do their part by following instructions faithfully, week after week, throughout nine months. The doctor cannot live his patient’s life for her; he can plan and advise her ever so wisely, but this counts for very little unless she lives as he directs.

The young woman who sees her motherhood as a coveted privilege, crowded with happy possibilities, who is willing to bear its inconveniences and take the necessary precautions to insure a satisfactory outcome, is very likely to go through her experience in good health and buoyant spirits. And in the end she will have not only the ecstasy of possessing a beautiful, well baby who has every prospect of continuing so, but as the years pass she will have the satisfaction of knowing that she is a better, more helpful, more companionable mother because of being in good health herself.

That is the point of good maternity care—future well-being as well as immediate safety for both mother and baby—and it rests with each woman to decide for herself if she is to have such care.

CHAPTER II
SIGNS THAT A BABY IS COMING

The woman who wants a baby and is in a position to have one is usually eager to know how she can tell when a baby is coming. She wants to know because the baby’s coming means so much to her and also in order that she may know when to consult a doctor.

I am sorry to have to admit, at the outset, that making this important discovery is far from being a simple matter. One would suppose, after all these ages, during which countless babies have been born and countless pregnancies have been observed by doctors and others, that there would be some known way of finding out definitely, at an early date, whether or not a baby was coming. But strangely enough, there is no positive evidence of the baby’s existence within his mother’s body until eighteen or twenty weeks after his life there has begun.

On the other hand, so many symptoms of pregnancy are known to women, the world over, that very often an expectant mother is correct when she suspects at an early date that she is pregnant, particularly if she has already had a child. But as the well-known symptoms are much like those of various conditions other than pregnancy, even experienced mothers sometimes believe themselves pregnant when they are not. The reverse is true also, for we occasionally hear of a woman who fails to recognize the meaning of the changes which she notices in herself, and is unaware of being pregnant up to the very time of going into labor.

And so we find that there are some signs of pregnancy which are only possible, since they may be caused by some other conditions; others which may be accepted as probable, and a few signs which are positive because they are never due to any cause but pregnancy.