Femina, A Work for Every Woman

by John A. Miller

The growth of the embryo, which is the predestined child in the mother’s womb, occupies a period of ten lunar months, or two hundred and eighty days—this is the average term of pregnancy, although the duration of pregnancy is prolonged in a large proportion of cases to three hundred days, and even longer, while in a small proportion of pregnant women the period of gestation falls naturally shorter than two hundred and eighty days.

In a small number of pregnancies the impregnated ovum is arrested at the ovary, or on its passage from the latter through the Fallopian tubes; it then does not arrive in the cavity of the uterus. This state of things is unnatural, hence termed preternatural, because the growth of the fetus takes place out of the uterus, and this is also called extrauterine pregnancy, which may take place in the ovary, Fallopian tubes, or cavity of the abdomen. False pregnancy implies that there was no pregnancy at all, or in other words, that there was no fetus, and that the enlargement was due to something else.

In pregnancy the female experiences signs and symptoms resulting from changes in the condition of her organs and functions. The suppression of the courses or menstrual discharges is considered in the popular mind an unerring proof of pregnancy, yet, as a matter of fact, this is far from the truth. I have known of two women who menstruated regularly during the entire period of their pregnancies, and there are a number of reliable cases recorded of women who menstruated during pregnancy and at no other time.

It is a rule, that the menses cease during pregnancy, but it is equally certain that the menstrual function becomes suspended from other causes, and these are quite numerous, so that taken by itself, the sign is of little importance. Young married women not infrequently have a slight menstruation for two or three periods after their first conception, and on the other hand, newly married women will have their menses occasionally arrested, and this may continue for two or three months and indeed no pregnancy exist.

Nausea and vomiting is also presumptive evidence of gestation. Some women are affected with sick stomach almost from the moment of conception, and from actual experience they are so certain of their condition, that they can calculate with certainty the day of their confinement from the time when they had their first feeling of nausea. Experience seems to teach that a certain amount of nausea, the morning sickness, and the vomiting which accompanies or follows it, is to be met in women who go through a natural or healthy pregnancy, so that many eminent authorities have looked upon this symptom as a physiological accompaniment, and one of the most constant and reliable symptoms. The vomiting and nausea of pregnancy is different from that which is an indication of general ill health; in pregnancy the vomiting is followed with a sense of relief, and the patient is for the time being quite easy. The length of time that women feel this gastric irritability varies in different individuals; ordinarily it will cease about the fourth month, sometimes sooner, and it may return again during the last two or three months of gestation. It is supposed to be due to a reflex action of the spinal cord from the uterus to the stomach. It must be remembered, however, that a disease of the uterus, a fibroid or ovarian tumor, and a suppression of the menses from other causes than pregnancy will occasion nausea and vomiting.

A capricious appetite is another of the peculiarities of pregnancy, a longing for unnatural food, so that some women will enjoy eating such things as chalk, slate pencils, and similar indigestible stuff; this I have always considered a form of hysteria, that is, a functional derangement of the nervous system, for which I gave ten grains of bromide of sodium three times a day, with the best results; others again became passionately fond of sour salads, or strong condiments like mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and salt fish, while others again long for fruits.

Salivation of the mouth is another very unpleasant symptom which annoys some women when they are pregnant, for they will secrete such enormous quantities of saliva, that they cannot help drooling from the mouth when they speak. In salivation of pregnancy the gums do not become sore as in the salivation from mercury; in the former the irritation is confined to the salivary glands alone. The wonderful sympathy that exists between remotely situated organs of the body is here strikingly illustrated between the sexual organs and the salivary glands in both sexes. In mumps also, which is an inflammation of the salivary gland, it is not unusual for the testes in the male and the mammæ in the female to become swollen and painful, and as soon as this swelling takes place, the inflammation of the salivary gland disappears.

The breasts become enlarged and otherwise altered in pregnancy, the enlargement is accompanied with more or less sharply shooting pain, they also become harder and are more movable than otherwise. The nipple becomes more prominent and painfully sensitive, the veins that run from the breast become distended so that they can be readily traced by the eye. The presence of milk in the mammæ is another sign, but that, too, is only presumptive, because the secretion of milk takes place in other conditions than that of pregnancy; even the newly-born infant has sometimes milk in its breasts, and milk has been recognized in the breasts of some males and not infrequently in those of young virgins.

Pigmentation or the deposit of coloring matter in pregnancy has long been observed as a prominent symptom and when taken together with other signs it is worthy of careful consideration, but here, too, we encounter the obstacle to anything of a positive nature, for discoloration is also met with in females who are suffering from pelvic diseases and who are not pregnant. Areola is the technical name of that peculiar circle which immediately surrounds the nipple. In a healthy virgin this circle is characterized by a beautiful rose-tinted blush, but under the influence of disease, even in the virgin the circle becomes more or less discolored. When pregnancy has occurred the areola around the nipple becomes darker and darker; other parts of the body become similarly discolored, this occurs on the abdomen and perineum.