THE PERILS OF MATERNITY.
In the early part of this work we quoted some authorities to show that those women who choose single life as their portion do not escape the ills of existence, nor do they protract their days, but, on the contrary, as shown by extensive statistics, are more prone to affections of the mind, and die earlier. While, therefore, nature thus rewards those who fulfil the functions of their being, by taking part in the mysterious processes of reproduction, and perpetuating the drama of existence, it is true also that she associates these privileges with certain deprivations and suffering. We do not wish to throw around the married state any charms which are not its own. Rather is it our aim to portray with absolute, and therefore instructive, fidelity all that this condition offers of unfavorable as well as favorable aspects.
Let us say at once, maternity has its perils,—perils as peculiar and as inevitable as those which pertain to single life. Our present purpose is to mention these, and by stating their nature and what are their causes, so far as known, to put married women on their guard against them. Some are almost trifling, at least not involving danger to life; others most harassing to the sufferer and to her friends.
We shall now consider the principal diseases to which married women are exposed from pregnancy, from childbirth, and from nursing.
DISEASES OF PREGNANCY.
In treating of pregnancy we have pointed out that it was a healthy and happy condition to most women. The exceptional cases are mainly those in which the health is injured by mental trouble or anxiety. Thus the young and delicate girl newly married is full of vague alarms in regard to the pains and dangers of her untried path to maternity. She frets herself and embitters her life during those months in which tranquility is of the utmost importance. Is it surprising, then, that her health should be disordered, and that she should suffer from some of the diseases incident to the pregnant state?
Again, the mother of a large family, but the mistress of a small income, is distressed by the thought of additional expense, which it seems to her, particularly in her nervous state, impossible to meet. This condition of protracted anxiety is ill fitted to enable her to resist any tendency to disease to which she may be exposed. Indeed, prolonged vexation from these and other causes not unfrequently tend to puerperal mania (a disease of which we shall shortly have something to say), or to some other nervous affection.
The wife during pregnancy should therefore be treated with unusual kindness by those about her, and every attempt made to soften her lot. The erroneous impression prevails among some that the pregnant wife should enure herself to toil and hardship. This notion is doubtless due to the observation that domestic animals that are subjected to a life of labor bring forth their young with little suffering. 'The cow in the country farm living unfettered in the meadow until the day of calving, has in general a safe and easy labor. The poor beast, on the contrary, which is kept in a town dairy, has a time so incredibly dangerous that the proprietor generally sells off his stock every year, and replaces it with cows in calf; such cows not being put into the stalls till within six or eight days of the expected period of labor. The deduction from this is that an artificial mode of life—a life maintained by improper food, and without a sufficient supply of pure air, or a due amount of exercise—has a most deleterious influence upon the process of labor; and not that a toilsome existence, embittered with all the pains and anxieties of poverty, gives comparative immunity from danger in the hour of childbirth.' One of the discomforts of pregnancy is—
MORNING SICKNESS.
This affection, when confined, as is usually the case, to the morning and early part of the day, rarely requires much medical care. Its absence, which, as we have said, is a frequent cause of miscarriage, is more to be regretted than its presence especially as it is apt to be replaced by more serious troubles.