Getting ready to be a mother

by Carolyn Conant Van Blarcom

The Kidneys. It is scarcely possible to say enough about the importance of keeping your kidneys in normal working order during pregnancy, for through them is excreted much of the waste matter from your baby’s body as well as your own. Sometimes when these impurities are not thrown off as they should be the expectant mother has convulsions. You will be glad to know how much you yourself can do toward preventing convulsions by drinking plenty of water and by faithfully measuring your urine and taking a specimen to the doctor when he asks you to. As I said before, you should drink at least three quarts of fluid every day. Most of this should be water, the remainder being milk, cocoa, soup, tea, coffee, and so on.

The doctor will probably want you to measure your urine and take a specimen to him once a month during the first half of pregnancy and every two weeks afterward, or even every week toward the end. He can tell by examining the urine whether your kidneys are acting as they should and if they are not he may save you serious trouble by putting you to bed for a few days with no nourishment but milk and water.

In preparing a specimen you will need a covered corked vessel large enough to hold all the urine passed in twenty-four hours, and it must be thoroughly washed and scalded. The next step is to pass urine, suppose we say at eight o’clock in the morning, and throw it away. All of the urine which you pass after this time until eight o’clock the next morning must be saved in the vessel and kept in a cool place to prevent its decomposing. If you will put a teaspoonful of chloroform or boracic acid powder into the vessel it will tend to preserve the urine and will not injure the specimen. At the end of twenty-four hours the urine should be shaken to mix it thoroughly and about half a pint poured into a bottle that has been washed and scalded. Carefully cork and label this with the date, your name and address and the total amount of urine passed in the twenty-four hours. The vessel for collecting the urine and whatever you use as a measure should be reserved for these purposes only. If you have no tin or glass measure, a regular-size quart tomato can will prove entirely satisfactory.

If you find, when measuring your urine, that you pass less than a quart and a half in twenty-four hours, you may know without being told that this is not enough and that you should drink more water.

The Skin. People are likely to think of the skin as being simply a covering for the body, whereas, in reality, it is a very complicated and active organ which helps to regulate the body temperature and constantly throws off impurities, just as the kidneys do. This latter function is performed by the sweat glands which open upon the surface of the skin as the “pores,” and we are told that in all there are some twenty-eight miles of these tiny tube-like structures in the skin. These glands should be, and usually are, constantly active; they pour upon the surface of the body an oily substance which keeps the skin soft; they also excrete something more than a pint of water daily, which contains impurities that are harmful if retained in the body. We are not aware of this constant excretion of fluids, which is termed “insensible perspiration,” but it continues even in cold weather and must not be stopped if health is to be preserved. If the oil, dust, particles of dead skin and the waste material left by dried perspiration are allowed to remain upon the surface of the body they will clog the pores, or gland openings, and thus interfere with their action. The removal of this material, then, is necessary to maintain health, and is done automatically in part for the fluid evaporates and much of the solid matter is rubbed off on the clothing. The most important aids to the skin’s activity are the drinking of plenty of water, deep breathing, exercise and warm baths.

Regular and thorough bathing serves the double purpose of removing waste matter already on the surface, and of stimulating the glands to increased activity in giving off still more.

Many doctors advise a warm, not hot, shower or tub bath every day, with soap used freely over the entire body, followed by a brisk rub. The best time for this warm, cleansing bath, as a rule, is just before retiring, as it is soothing and restful, and tends to induce sleep. Very hot baths are fatiguing, particularly during pregnancy, and should never be taken except with the doctor’s permission; but cold baths usually may be continued throughout pregnancy if one is accustomed to them and reacts well afterwards. Under these conditions the morning cold plunge, shower or sponge is beneficial, as it stimulates the circulation and thus promotes the activity of the skin. Some doctors forbid tub bathing of any kind after the seventh month, on the ground that as the expectant mother sits in the tub her vagina is filled with unsterile water and should labor occur shortly afterward an infection, or fever, might result. And as she is heavy and somewhat uncertain on her feet, there is also the danger of her slipping and falling while getting in or out of the tub. Other doctors permit tub baths throughout pregnancy, up until the onset of labor; while as to hot foot baths, since there seems to be no reason for or against them at any time during the nine months, they may be taken or not at will.

Bathing in a quiet stream or lake is apparently harmless but sea bathing, if the surf is rough, is inadvisable because of the beating of the waves upon the abdomen and the general violence of the exercise.

The importance of keeping the body evenly warm throughout pregnancy cannot be overemphasized, for a sudden chilling or wetting may so check action of the skin as to impose more of a burden upon the kidneys than they can meet, in their effort to throw off the skin’s share of the body waste. Accordingly, a single chilling will sometimes be enough to cause convulsions. This may be one reason why convulsions occur more frequently during cold weather or after a sudden drop in the temperature after warm or mild days.

The Bowels. The bowels, also, throw off a certain amount of impurities and if they do not move thoroughly at least once a day these impurities may be taken into the system and again the kidneys be given extra work.