Advice to a wife and mother in two parts

by Pye Henry Chavasse

267. Light puddings, such as either rice, or batter, or suet-pudding, or fruit puddings, provided the paste be plain, may be taken with advantage. Rich pastry is highly objectionable.

268. If she be plethoric, abstinence is still more necessary, or she might have a tedious labor, or might suffer severely. The old-fashioned treatment was to bleed a pregnant patient if she were of a full habit of body. A more absurd plan could not be adopted! Bleeding would, by causing more blood to be made, only increase the mischief; but certainly it would be blood of an inferior quality, watery and poor. The best way to diminish the quantity of blood is to moderate the amount of food, to lessen the supplies.

SLEEP.

269. The bedroom of a pregnant lady ought, if practicable, to be large and airy. Particular attention must be paid to the ventilation. The chimney should on no account be stopped. The door and the windows ought in the daytime to be thrown wide open, and the bedclothes should be thrown back, that the air might, before the approach of night, well ventilate them.

270. It is a mistaken practice for a pregnant woman, or for any one else, to sleep with closely-drawn curtains. Pure air and a frequent change of air are quite as necessary—if not more so—during the night as during the day: and how can it be pure, and how can it be changed, if curtains are closely drawn around the bed? Impossible. The roof of the bedstead ought not to be covered with bed furniture; it should be open to the ceiling, in order to prevent any obstruction to a free circulation of air.

271. The bed must not be loaded with clothes, more especially with a thick coverlet. If the weather be cold, let an extra blanket be put on the bed, as the perspiration can permeate through a blanket when it cannot through a thick coverlet.

272. A lady who is pregnant is sometimes restless at night—she feels oppressed and hot. The best remedies are:—(1) Scant clothing on the bed. (2) The lower sash of the window, during the summer months, to be left open to the extent of six or eight inches, and during the winter months, to the extent of two or three inches; provided the room be large, the bed be neither near nor under the window, and the weather be not intensely cold. If any or all of these latter circumstances occur, then (3) the window to be closed and the door to be left ajar (the landing or the skylight window at the top of the house being left open all night, and the door being secured from intrusion by means of a door-chain.) (4) Attention to be paid, if the bowels be costive—but not otherwise—to a gentle action of the bowels by castor oil. (5) An abstemious diet, avoiding stimulants of all kinds. (6) Gentle walking exercise. (7) Sponging the body every morning—in the winter with tepid water, and in the summer with cold water. (8) Cooling fruits in the summer are in such a case very grateful and refreshing. (See paragraph 264.)

273. A pregnant woman sometimes experiences an inability to lie down, the attempt occasionally producing a feeling of suffocation and of faintness. She ought, under such circumstances, to lie on a bed-rest, which must, by means of pillows, be made comfortable; and she should take, every night at bedtime, a teaspoonful of sal-volatile in a wineglassful of water.

274. Pains at night, during the latter end of the time, are usually frequent, so as to make an inexperienced lady fancy that her labor was commencing. Little need be done; for unless the pains be violent, nature ought not to be interfered with. If they be violent, application should be made to a medical man.

275. A pregnant lady must retire early to rest. She ought to be in bed every night by ten o’clock, and should make a point of being up in good time in the morning, that she may have a thorough ablution, a stroll in the garden, and an early breakfast; and that she may afterwards take a short walk either in the country or in the grounds while the air is pure and invigorating. But how often, more especially when a lady is first married, is an opposite plan adopted! The importance of bringing a healthy child into the world, if not for her own and her husband’s sake, should induce a wife to attend to the above remarks.