The prospective mother must resign her amusements at evening entertainments in crowded halls or theaters, in which the air becomes foul and overheated from large congregations of persons. Here she is also threatened to be jostled and jammed, and perhaps injured in other ways. Her sleeping apartments should be thoroughly ventilated through the day, and coition, if not entirely suspended, at least restrained and only passively exercised, for any excess of this nature is not only injurious to the child, but may cause a miscarriage. It is not expected that the pregnant woman should sit in the arm chair during the period of gestation, far from it, but it is even greatly desired that she continue her usual vocation. Exercise of a passive nature is always wholesome, and for this reason it will be conducive to good health if enough work is done over every day to keep the system in gentle activity; the domestic duties of a household will or should always furnish that. All good women take a pride in their household affairs, if they do not they are not good; and those who boast that they never put their hands to anything in the house, have mistaken their vocation as women, and are either indolent or worthless, and often both. No one should boast of idleness, rather be ashamed of it. Employment makes character; it gives buoyancy to the spirit and tranquillity of mind. The influence that an equable temperament exercises over the nervous development of the unborn child may eventually be demonstrated by its resistance to the shock of diseases which superinduce convulsions and death. It is not advisable to sleep during the day, it is better to retire early after a light supper, so as to rest a few hours before midnight. This makes one fresh and spry in the morning, being on hand early in the morning, it gives ample time to dispose of domestic duties, and thus avoid confusion and rushing during the day.
Cleanliness is one of the cardinal virtues of the pregnant woman—as pregnancy will be followed with childbirth, and as cleanliness is but another name for antiseptic, and that will guard against childbed fever, the importance of cleanliness springs at once into unusual prominence. No person can be filthy and slovenly during the entire period of gestation, and then at the moment of confinement become clean, even if in the last moment the person becomes bathed and brushed, everything else around and about her is soiled and dirty, unless she be taken to a lying-in home. Cleanliness must be cultivated, and finally it becomes second nature. The daily ablution of the external genitals should not be neglected, and general bathing in water not altogether too warm, say 90 to 94 degrees F., twice a week will prove beneficial in many ways. The linen that is worn, and that which is in the bed should be kept sweet and clean, and cleaner than ever on the day of confinement.
The mammæ of the pregnant woman are sometimes very painful; as pregnancy advances they enlarge, the lacteal glands become congested and swollen. To relieve this I recommend the application of a liniment of equal parts camphorated oil, laudanum, and tincture of belladonna gently applied several times a day. The breasts should always be extra well covered with flannel so as not to take cold in them, otherwise an abscess may form in them long before the child is born. If the nipples are sensitive it is advisable to begin to harden them during the last few months of gestation. Tannate of glycerine is perhaps the best thing to apply for this purpose; it is best done by means of a small camel’s hair brush. If the nipples are sunken into the breast, and too short for subsequent use for the baby, it is well to draw them out by means of a breast pump, the bowl of a new clay pipe, or by employing a bottle from which the air has been replaced by filling it with hot water and then pouring it out; the mouth of the hot bottle is applied over the depressed nipple, and as it cools off, the vacuum thus formed draws the nipple out.
Nausea and vomiting in pregnancy is often so annoying and weakening that the strength of the patient becomes seriously threatened, and hence some measures must be employed to counteract it. A great variety of agents have been suggested for this purpose. Tincture of nux vomica in two or three drop doses every three or four hours is a useful remedy; the oxalate of cerium is another valuable agent for this purpose, in five to ten grain doses three times a day, but a more valuable remedy than any other that I know, is the Femina vaginal capsule, to be used every night at bedtime, and in severe cases, also in the morning.
Salivation is not constantly an attendant upon pregnancy, but when it does occur it is weakening and debilitating. There are many remedies for this disorder, but one of the most effectual ones is an occasional dose of Epsom salts, say a teaspoonful in a half tumbler of water every other morning, so as to produce free discharges from the bowels; when salts are found objectionable, the Femina laxative syrup taken in doses that have a similar effect will be a most excellent substitute.
Constipation is one of the most common derangements of the pregnant woman; it is the rule in which the exceptions are few and far between. I do not include those cases of costiveness which are habitual, and which are to be attributed to carelessness in not responding to nature’s call when there is an inclination, but to those in which constipation is contemporaneous with pregnancy. We have already seen the sympathy between the stomach and other organs in pregnancy, and that a similar derangement should exist between the uterus and rectum is not at all unreasonable, and, indeed, it can be explained in that way. In the early months of pregnancy, the torpor of the bowels may be due to the general derangement which follows digestive disturbances; in the latter months, the enlarged uterus presses against the large intestines, so as to obstruct more or less the descent of the feces into the rectum. This torpor of the bowels should not be allowed to be unrelieved, for if permitted to continue it may not only induce a miscarriage, but it is apt to cause fever, headache and loss of appetite. Harsh cathartics must not be employed; and if a simple enema of warm water early every morning does not give the desired relief, I would recommend a daily dose of Femina laxative syrup. If it is found that in attempting to administer an enema, the fluid is immediately returned, then it will probably be owing to lumps of fecal matter which clog up the rectum; this will likely give rise to more or less straining or bearing down in the back passage, and to pains in the pelvis and lower limbs, all of which is not without danger of exciting premature labor pains; the fecal lumps must be removed even if it becomes necessary to use the finger.
Diarrhea is the opposite condition of things, namely a looseness of the bowels. This may be occasioned by improper food, cold or any other cause capable of producing diarrhea when pregnancy does not exist. Habitual costiveness is often followed by diarrhea from the irritation which the hardened feces excite. A dose of castor oil is sometimes an efficient remedy for this variety of diarrhea, but when the disease becomes obstinate and painful, the following remedy can always be depended upon for relief:—
| Take: | Tr. of catechu. | |
| Tr. of kino, of each | 4 drams | |
| Paregoric | 1 ounce | |
| Chalk mixture | 2 ounces |
Mix and take a tablespoonful every four hours until relieved.