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Mother, Nurse and Infant: A Manual Especially Adapted for the Guidance of Mothers and Monthly Nurses, Comprising Full Instruction in Regard To Pregnancy, Preparation for Child-birth, and the Care of Mother and Child, and Designed to Impart so Much Knowledge of Anatomy, Physiology, Midwifery, and the Proper Use of Medicines as Will Serve Intelligently to Direct the Wife, Mother and Nurse in All Emergencies.Sackett, S. P.

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Mother, Nurse and Infant: A Manual Especially Adapted for the Guidance of Mothers and Monthly Nurses, Comprising Full Instruction in Regard To Pregnancy, Preparation for Child-birth, and the Care of Mother and Child, and Designed to Impart so Much Knowledge of Anatomy, Physiology, Midwifery, and the Proper Use of Medicines as Will Serve Intelligently to Direct the Wife, Mother and Nurse in All Emergencies.

Name: Mother, Nurse and Infant: A Manual Especially Adapted for the Guidance of Mothers and Monthly Nurses, Comprising Full Instruction in Regard To Pregnancy, Preparation for Child-birth, and the Care of Mother and Child, and Designed to Impart so Much Knowledge of Anatomy, Physiology, Midwifery, and the Proper Use of Medicines as Will Serve Intelligently to Direct the Wife, Mother and Nurse in All Emergencies.
Author: Sackett, S. P.

Sackett, S. P.

Infants -- Care; Materia medica; Obstetrics -- Popular works; Women -- Health and hygiene

AT TERM the fœtus that is twenty inches long will generally measure ten
and a half to eleven inches from the crown to the umbilicus. The
different parts are well developed and partly covered by a smegma called
the _vernix caseosa_; the head has attained the proper hardness, and the
scrotum usually contain the testicles. In female children the nymphæ are
generally covered entirely by the labia, the breasts project, and in
both sexes contain frequently a milky fluid.

As soon as the child that has been carried the full time is born it
usually cries, opens its eyes, and makes some struggling motions with
its limbs; it soon passes urine and feces, and readily takes the breast.

With occasional exceptions the position of the child is unaltered from
an early period of pregnancy to its termination, whether the head be
upwards or downwards. The arms are generally folded over the chest, the
knees drawn up to the abdomen; the back curved, and the head bent upon
the chest, so as to occupy as little space as possible. In ordinary
cases the head is directed downwards, and the face looks obliquely, so
that in the first and second position the back of the fœtus is turned
partly forwards, and the belly in the third and fourth. We are enabled
in many cases to ascertain the position of the fœtus in the uterus
before labor has commenced, by means of the stethescope, by noting
whether the pulsation is felt on one side or the other of the abdomen
and observing whether it is heard clearly or not.

The longitudinal diameter of the head is from 4 to 4½ inches, the
transverse from 3½ to 4, the vertical 3 to 3¾ inches. The transverse
diameter of the shoulders and thorax is 4¾ to 5½; the widest diameter of
the hips 4 to 5 inches. In general the measurements are a little less in
the female than in the male.

The head of the fœtus is large, and as it is less compressible at term
than other portions it merits a particular description; we should be
acquainted with all its characters, that we may recognize them and
thereby determine the position during labor.

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