When a child is born, some idea may be formed respecting its age by the appearance it presents. A description of the signs of maturity and immaturity, founded upon that of two French authors, Foderé and Capuron, will serve to contrast the one with the other.
The signs of maturity are the following:
The ability to cry as soon as the child reaches the atmospheric air, or shortly thereafter, and also to move its limbs with facility, and more or less strength; the body being of a clear red color; the mouth, nostrils, eyelids, and ears perfectly open; the bones of the cranium possessing some solidity, and the fontanelles not far apart; the hair, eyebrows, and nails perfectly developed; the free discharge of the urine and meconium in a few hours after birth; and finally, the power of swallowing and digesting, indicated by its seizing the nipple, or a finger placed in its mouth.
The signs of immaturity, on the other hand, are the following:
The length and volume of the infant—much less than those of an infant in full term; it does not move its members, and makes only feeble motions; it seems unable to suck, and has to be fed artificially; its skin is of an intense red color, and traversed by numerous bluish vessels; the head is covered with a down, and the nails are not formed; the bones of the head are soft, and the fontanelles are widely separated; the eyelids, mouth, and nostrils closed; it sleeps continually, and must be preserved by artificial heat; and, lastly, it discharges its urine and meconium imperfectly, and often after a long interval.
You will, of course, readily comprehend that the appearances of children at birth, even of the same age of fetal life, must be subject to a good deal of variation. Some are much stronger than others, and the size and weight also varies a good deal. At one time a mother may have a very large, strong, and well-formed child, and at another a small and weak one. The size, however, does not determine the healthfulness of a child.
LETTER IX.
MANAGEMENT IN PREGNANCY.
Importance of Attention to the Health at this Period—Clothing, and its Effects—How to Regulate it.
There is, perhaps, no period of life in which the management of the health becomes a matter of more importance than in pregnancy. A little mismanagement here is not unfrequently sufficient to cause the individual life-long suffering and disease. I have known a woman, in the fifth or sixth month of pregnancy, to go to an evening party, become excited and mirthful, remain late at night, eating and drinking, as is customary on such occasions, and perhaps, worst of all for a person in such a condition, engage freely in the dance. Immediately, thereupon, that woman has been taken with uterine hemorrhage, that ended necessarily in abortion, a circumstance always more unfavorable to the constitution than labor itself. I have known such a woman to be not only in a very precarious and dangerous situation at the time, but to experience for many months afterward an extreme prostration of the general health, and an amount of suffering from depression of spirits and nervousness, with all its multitudinous train of ills, which cannot be conceived of only by those who have suffered them. I have known a woman commit imprudences, such as doing a great deal of work at one time, when she was generally indolent in her habits; and thus, by the indolence and overworking alternately, abortion, hemorrhage, attended with fainting—and which has brought her to the very verge of death—has been caused. I have known, too, imprudent women, who, dissatisfied with themselves and their condition, have taken powerful medicines, with the idea of removing their unwelcome obstructions, and thus to bring upon themselves a train of evils and sufferings which have ended only in the sleep of death. I have known, too, women to be exceedingly injured by the gross habits of their prurient husbands during this period. The abominable and disgusting practice to which I here allude is, I fear, exceedingly common. It cannot be too much reprobated or spoken against. He that uses his wife like a brute during this time, is, to say the least, little better than those who go away from home in quest of illicit intercourse.
Women, too, are liable to accidents during this period. I lately had a case in this city (New York), of a strong, healthy woman, who had borne a number of children, and, at about the end of the seventh month, an unfortunate circumstance occurred, in which no person was to blame, and by which she became so much and so suddenly frightened as to be prostrated on her bed for nearly a week. She did not recover the general tone of the system during the remainder of the period; and the day after the birth of the child, it was seized with fits resembling those arising from fright. The child, as well as the mother, was very feeble. By very prudent management, however, both finally recovered.