The Matron's Manual of Midwifery, and the Diseases of Women During Pregnancy and in Childbed / Being a Familiar and Practical Treatise, More Especially Intended for the Instruction of Females Themselves, but Adapted Also for Popular Use among Students and Practitioners of Medicine

by Frederick Hollick

End of the ninth month.—There is but little difference between this and the previous period. The mouth of the Uterus is more open, and, in those who have had children, the finger will pass directly into the Womb, and feel the child, but in primipara there is still a small portion of the neck left.

PLATE XXIII.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

The neck of the Womb, at near the end of nine months in a primipara.

The neck of the Womb, at near the end of nine months, in a woman who has previously borne children.

Ballotment is now more obscure than before, as the Fœtus is very heavy, and quite low down, and pretty firmly fixed. Auscultation is distinct enough, but not more so than at the previous period. The swelling of the lips, and of the veins of the legs, may increase, and so may the difficulty with the urine; but the breathing generally becomes easier, owing to the Womb having descended a little, and so pressing the diaphragm less.

These comprise all the signs and indications of pregnancy that possess any real value. Some of them, at certain times, and under particular circumstances, may be called positive; such as those discovered by Ballotment and Auscultation, and also the presence of Kyestein in the urine. Most of the others merely make it probable that pregnancy exists, or warrant us in presuming as much. They are not to be depended on implicitly alone, but when many of them are observed together, and no other cause can be assigned for their production, the presumption becomes so well supported as almost to be called a moral certainty. A person of experience, who is familiar with all these signs, and with the others produced by disease which resemble them, will seldom find it difficult to decide; but still there are cases in which pregnancy proceeds, even to its termination, with but few unusual symptoms, so that both patient and attendant are completely at fault. This however is very rare, and many eminent authors contend that it is always possible to detect pregnancy, after the sixth month, and I think so myself, unless the child be dead, in which case it will soon be evident in another way.