In. CAUSES WHICH ARE DUE TO PREG NANCY PLUS ADDITIONAL PROVOCATION FROM WITHIN OR WITHOUT THE INDI VIDUAL.
1. Improper Diet or Habits.—There are few subjects about which even in telligent people err more grievously than as to their diet and their ordinary habits. The selection of suitable food is at all times a subject of the first importance, and when those who suffer with the ills of pregnancy suffer also from the use of improper food, whether this be the sult of necessity, or of ignorance, or of willfulness, the consequences are pitiable, for Nature is no respecter of persons.
The sufferings in these cases are pri marily, of course, related to the ive apparatus, indigestion, constipation, nausea and vomiting, and loss of appe tite being most conspicuous; but other portions of the economy may become volved, until confusion and anarchy pre vail. The influence of improper habits in accentuating the disorders of preg nancy is a fact which is continually senting itself. It is only necessary to mention in this category the unfavorable influence of overwork, insufficient sleep, the excitement of life in society, alco holic excesses, and frequent coitus, to illustrate the possibilities of disturbance which may occur, and which in very many cases are entirely unnecessary and avoidable.
Many complications accompanying and following pregnancy are due to errors in diet. The pregnant woman should avoid excesses of water and albumin. Follow ing diet prescribed based upon 25 obser vations: Fresh meat once daily in small quantity. Green vegetables, salad, pota toes, bread, and butter. Eggs, pease, and beans to be avoided as much as possible. Wine, beer, and alcohol are forbidden, and only enough liquids should be taken to allay thirst. Advan tages are:— 1. Activity is preserved up to time of delivery; sensations of fullness, fatigue, thirst, and constipation disappear early.
2. Rapidity and facility of delivery even in cases in which previously it had been difficult.
3. A limited quantity of amniotic fluid.
4. Possibility of nursing offspring, the milk being of good quality and quantity.
The medium weight of the children was six pounds, and the circumference of the head thirty-three to thirty-four centimetres. Eichholz (Revue Med.,
May 16, '96).
2. Trauma.—Injuries of various char acters are not inhibited nor prevented by pregnancy. Some of them may be con sidered mere curiosities; for example, the tearing open of the pregnant womb by the horns of cattle, early delivery by Cmsarean section because of extensive pelvic deformity, kicks in the abdomen and other brutal treatment, penetration of the vagina and uterus by sticks or other hard objects, accidentally or inten tionally. All these causes may produce intense disturbance: the delivery of the ovum, pain and inflammation, sepsis, and even death.
3. Nervous and Mental Irritants.— There are many causes of this nature which produce disturbance of one kind and another during the pregnant state. Sudden emotions of fear, surprise, grief, anger, etc., may produce unusual results, owing to the extreme sensitiveness which many women experience while pregnant. With one woman the result will be a gen eral sense of pain or a neuralgia in some particular nerve or set of nerves. With another the result will be nausea with or without vomiting, with another diar rhoea, while with others the uterus will be excited to contraction and its contents expelled. A very common result from such excitants is incontinence of urine, the urine being voided involuntarily with the slightest nervous or mental impres sion of an unusual character. The birth marks or stigmata with which many chil dren come into the world are often trace able only to mental impressions or a dis ordered imagination, and many of the monstrosities among infants may be fairly accounted for in this way. A woman whose mind is diseased may pro duce a persistent impression upon her unborn child which will manifest itself at a later period upon the child's phys ical or mental structure. Women with organic disease of the nervous system may so impress their offspring that they will succumb during the gestation period, or if carried to term will be of such defective structure that their en tire lives will be burdensome to them.