There is generally an increase in the size of the breast, followed as the months progress by a very noticeable increase in the size and bright blue colour of the veins round the breast, and also a darkening in colour and a changing from pink to brownish tint of the area round the centre of the breast. After the third month, there is visible a steadily increasing enlargement of the lower part of the body, but, as this also happens with some forms of illness, this alone and without the other signs is not proof that motherhood has commenced. “Quickening” or the movements of the child, are a much better indication of motherhood, and these are generally to be perceived about the twentieth week, or roughly half-way through the whole period of prenatal life; but see further the remarks in Chapter XIII, p. 113. The perception of the child’s heart beats is absolute proof of coming motherhood. These may be perceived after the fourth or fifth month quite readily by a nurse or other observer, though the mother herself can but seldom perceive them. “Morning Sickness,” which is so often experienced, and in most books for the “expectant mother” is quoted as one of the first signs of pregnancy, _should never occur at all_--see Chapter XI--although unfortunately it is true that it does frequently occur in women who are bearing children under present conditions. APPENDIX B ON BIRTH The usual agonies of child birth vary greatly in extent according to the structure of the woman. But, as was shown in Chapter II, the tendency already is present, and probably will increase, for this to be an almost intolerable strain upon the woman. Tardily indeed have efforts to relieve her agonies in child birth been made; Queen Victoria took a grave and adventurous step when she bore one of her children under chloroform. Chloroform, however, only deadens consciousness at a comparatively late stage in child birth, and its use through the many long hours, even perhaps sometimes days of agony which precede the later stages is not often possible. It is, therefore, for some types of women a very insufficient narcotic. Natural “painless Child Birth” is, of course, the ideal, and is claimed to be the result of the “fruit and rice diet,” see _Tokology_ by Dr. Alice Stockham, but although this greatly reduces the pain for many, and undoubtedly makes the months of pregnancy easier, it cannot make birth anything but a torture if the proportion of the child’s head to the bony arch is above a given limit. The “Christian Science” claim for not only painless but bloodless birth has been reported to me, but never at first hand, and I have not yet had the first-hand statements of women who are said to have experienced it.