Both mother and child are seriously jeopardized by chronic nephritis, the mortalities being about 30% respectively. P. 497.
Women with chronic nephritis should not marry, and if married, should not conceive. P. 498.
Diabetes. Sterility is common. Abortion and premature labor occur in 33% of the pregnancies. The children, if the pregnancy goes to term, often die shortly after birth, the total mortality being 66%. P. 502.
True diabetes has a very bad diagnosis. Offergold found over 50% mortality. Of the children 51% were still born, 10% died within a few days after birth, and 5% more before six months. P. 503.
If a woman comes under treatment with a history of diabetes it is best to terminate the pregnancy at once. P. 503.
THE PRACTICE OF OBSTETRICS. Designed for the use of Students and Practitioners of Medicine. J. Clifton Edgar. Professor of Obstetrical and Clinical Midwifery in the Cornell University Medical College; Visiting Obstetrician to Bellevue Hospital, New York City; Surgeon to the Manhattan Maternity Dispensary; Consulting Obstetrician to the New York Maternity and Jewish Hospitals. 5th Edition, Revised. P. Blakiston’s & Co., Philadelphia.
Statistics appear to show that labors in these women, (diabetes) are quite apt to end unfavorably, in one or another way. When diabetic women become pregnant their disease usually takes a turn for the worse. According to Lecorche, true diabetes who become pregnant, usually succumb to the disease within a short time after delivery. P. 305.
ECLAMPSIA
THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF OBSTETRICS. By Joseph B. De Lee, M.D.
Over 20% of women with eclampsia die and statistics show that 10% of such cases developed in the maternities. For the child the chances are not good, nearly one half of the children dying as a result, that is, due to: prematurity, toxemia, asphyxiation by repeated convulsions of the mother, drugs administered to the mother, and injuries sustained during birth, especially forced delivery. Eclampsia is more easily developed in a pregnant woman because the kidneys are carrying an increased burden, and too often diseased through the pregnancy changes. The cause of eclampsia are unknown but in 20% of cases the convulsions begin during pregnancy, in 60% during labor, and in 20% after delivery. Page 365.