One of the commonest of the early symptoms is headache, sometimes persistent and very severe. Others which you can detect are blurred vision, spots before the eyes, dizziness, vomiting which is more persistent or severe than could be called “morning sickness,” puffiness under the eyes or elsewhere about the face or hands, swelling of the feet and ankles and severe pain in the stomach. It might be that if you had even one of these symptoms your doctor would think it worth while to put you to bed and give you nothing but milk, or only water, for a day or two, not because you were sick, but to keep you from being so, on the same principle that you darn a thin place in a stocking to keep a hole from coming. In any event, tell your doctor about the symptoms and let him decide what is to be done, for therein lies your safety. =Miscarriages.= The question of abortions, miscarriages and premature births is one of enormous importance, and one about which there is a good deal of misunderstanding. As to the meaning of the terms, many women are puzzled to know the difference between them. Doctors are not likely to use the word miscarriage, but will describe as an abortion a termination of pregnancy which occurs before the end of the seventh month and as premature labors those occurring from that time until the expected date of confinement. In the minds of lay people, however, the term abortion is often associated with criminal practice, miscarriage being a term loosely applied to all births occurring before the seventh month, while the premature baby is the one born after the seventh month of pregnancy but before the expected date of confinement. Of all of these accidents, abortions are the most frequent, though in the nature of things it is impossible to say how often they occur. They sometimes happen so early in pregnancy that the expectant mother is unaware of the accident; or if she does know of it she may make the mistake of taking no notice of it or regard it of so little consequence that she does not consult a doctor. But such information as is available suggests that at least one out of every five pregnancies ends in abortion, the tragedy of this being that it is very largely a preventable disaster. Since the ovum is insecurely attached to the uterine lining until the sixteenth or eighteenth week, an abortion is more likely to occur during this time than later, while of this period, the second and third months seem to be the most perilous. Abortions are less likely to happen during first pregnancies than succeeding ones and their frequency seems to increase with the number of pregnancies. They occur more often among women over thirty-five years than in younger ones, and in all cases are most likely to take place at the time when menstruation would fall due were the woman not pregnant.