CHAPTER VII
PREPARATIONS FOR THE NATAL DAY
Two months before baby is to arrive, the expectant mother should pay particular attention to the conservation of her strength. The woman who is compelled to leave her home for the factory, the laundry, the office, or other place of employment, should stop work during these last two or three months. The active club woman should pass the burdens on to others, and the woman of leisure should withdraw from active social life with its varied obligations. During the final weeks of pregnancy, the prospective mother needs the same hygienic care regarding fresh air, exercise, diet, and water drinking, as outlined in a former chapter.
THE FINAL WEEKS
As the gravid uterus rises higher in the abdomen, increased pressure is exerted on the stomach, the lungs, and upon the nerve centers of the back; and it is because of this situation, that the duties and obligations of the prospective mother should be reduced to a minimum, that she may feel at liberty to lie down several times during the day on the porch or in a well-ventilated room, in the midst of the best possible surroundings. Sexual intercourse should be largely discontinued during the last months of pregnancy.
I sometimes wish the prospective mothers in our dispensary districts might have some of the care and the kind treatment which is bestowed upon an ordinary prospective mother horse, which at least enjoys a vacation from heavy labor, and whose food is eaten with calm nerves and in the quietness of a clean stall. While the state of the mother's mind does not materially influence the child; nevertheless, the state of the mother's body, the weary over-worked muscles and nerves of hot, tired women, bending over cook stoves, laundry tubs, or scrubbing floors, does materially derange the mother's health and digestion, which in turn, reflexly interferes with the growth and physical development of her child. Extra strength is required for the day of labor, and since the baby doubles its weight during the last two months, the mother is living for two, and should, therefore, avoid extreme fatigue, over tiring, and irksome labor during these final weeks of watchful waiting.
SELECTION OF THE HOME
It may or may not be within the province of prospective parents to rearrange, rebuild, or otherwise change the home. Usually the size of the pocketbook, the bank account, or the weekly pay envelope decide such things for us. The home may be in the country or suburbs, with its wide expanse of lawns, its hedges of shrubbery, and with its spacious rooms and porches; or it may be a beautifully equipped, modern apartment on the boulevard of a city, with its sun parlors, large back porches, conveniently located near some well-kept city park, or it may be one of those smaller but "snug as a bug in a rug" apartments, in another part of the city, where usually there is a sunny back porch; or again some of my readers may themselves be, or their friends may be, in a darkened basement with broken windows, illy ventilated rooms, with no porches, no yards, no bright rays to be seen coming in through windows—and yet into all of these varied homes there come little babies—sweet, charming little babies, to be cared for, dressed, fed, and reared. And we must now proceed to the subject of making the most of what we have—to create out of what we have, as best we can, that which ought to be.