Getting ready to be a mother : $b a little book of information and advice for the young woman who is looking forward to motherhoodVan Blarcom, Carolyn Conant
Science
Getting ready to be a mother : $b a little book of information and advice for the young woman who is looking forward to motherhood
Van Blarcom, Carolyn Conant
Infants -- Care; Obstetrics; Pregnancy
1. =Stopping of Menstruation.= This is usually the first symptom
noticed. Although it is possible for the periods to be stopped by any
one of several other causes, the missing of two successive periods,
after intercourse, is a strong indication of pregnancy in a healthy
woman of the childbearing age, whose menses have been regular.
2. =Changes in the Breasts.= These, also, occur early. The breasts
usually increase in size and firmness, and many women complain of
throbbing, tingling or pricking sensations and a feeling of tightness
and fullness. The breasts may be so tender that even slight pressure is
painful. The nipples become larger and more prominent; they and the
colored circle of skin around them grow darker, while the veins and the
glands that feel like little lumps under the skin become more
noticeable. If, in addition to these symptoms, it is possible for a
woman who has not had children to squeeze from her nipples a pale
yellowish fluid, called colostrum, she may feel almost certain that she
is pregnant. But it must be remembered that these symptoms, also, may be
due to causes other than pregnancy; that even milk in the breasts may be
present in a woman who has borne children, for months, or possibly
years, after the birth of her last baby.
3. “=Morning sickness=,” as the name suggests, is nausea, sometimes
accompanied by vomiting, from which many expectant mothers suffer the
first thing in the morning. This varies from a little nausea, when first
raising her head, to repeated attacks of vomiting during the day and
even during the night. As a rule, however, the discomfort is experienced
during the early part of the day only. Morning sickness may set in
immediately after conception, but begins about the sixth week, as a
rule, and lasts until the third or fourth month. It occurs in about half
of all pregnancies and is particularly common among women who are
pregnant for the first time. On the other hand, one must not forget that
many non-pregnant women suffer from nausea in the morning; many women go
through pregnancy without any such disturbance, while others are
entirely comfortable in the morning but nauseated during the latter part
of the day.
4. =Frequent Urination.= There is usually a desire to pass urine
frequently during the first three or four months of pregnancy, after
which the tendency disappears, but returns during the later months. The
desire may be due in part to nervousness, but is largely caused by
pressure made upon the bladder by the growing baby, and not by kidney
trouble, as is sometimes believed. For pressure on the outside of the
bladder gives much the same sensation as is experienced when the bladder
is full of urine. After the baby grows to such a size that he pushes up
into the abdomen (we shall describe this later), he does not press upon
the bladder and therefore ceases to create a desire to urinate until the
last month or six weeks before he is born when he sinks back into the
pelvis.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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