parts of the mother should be repeatedly cleansed each day with antiseptic solution (carbolic, 1 to 20, or lysol, half tea-spoon ful to a pint), dried with gamgee, and a fresh piece of gamgee applied as a napkin, the soiled pieces being immediately removed and burned.
But the rest of the body must be regularly sponged also, daily, with soap and warm water. After careful drying, a little spirit of wine may be used to parts Subject to pressure.
The draw-sheet needs careful attention, and the bed should always be sweet and free from odour.
The the advice given as to the movement of the bowels daily, before the labour comes on, is followed, it will be found that the mother remains quite comfortable for even four or five days after delivery, without a movement. But by the third day the bowels may be gently stimulated, and the best means is by castor oil given in small doses at intervals. Thus a tea-spoonful given every four or six hours, be ginning on the third day, is likely to move them without pain or great disturbance within twenty-four hours. If not, an enema of gly cerine, or oil and soapy water, may be given. A bed-pan should always be used. A daily movement should be afterwards obtained.
The Breasts.--The child should be put to the breast with absolute regularity every three hours: 6 and 9 a.m.; 12 noon; 3, 6, and 9 p.m. Refer to p. 560.
Before the child is put to the breast the nipple should be carefully sponged and dried. After the child is removed they should also be sponged, dried, and then boric acid and gly cerine applied, or, if the skin tends to crack, vaseline.
If they become painful by overdistention, the mother may obtain relief by a draught of fruit salt or Epsom salts, and by the applica tion of a firm binder over them.
Visitors are forbidden for the first week.
Sitting up in bed is not to be allowed till the seventh day, and then only for a brief period for meals, and the patient must not be allowed out of bed at all before the tenth day, and then only for a few minutes, wrapped in blankets. A fortnight after the birth is soon enough to permit the mother to get up for any length of time with clothes on. Even by that time she should rise for say an hour in the forenoon and an hour in the evening, and each day gradually lengthen the time till after another week she spends the better portion of the afternoon out of bed. It is infinitely better for her to take a long period of rest in order to rise thoroughly recovered and with restored strength, than to get up too soon and require to take soon to bed again with full recovery impeded. Details as to the management of the period of nursing are given on pp. 560 to 563.
are of the nature of labour pains on a small scale, and are due to irre gular contractions of the womb, owing to the presence of blood clots and the effort to expel them. As a rule they do not occur after a first labour, and may be greatly lessened after sub sequent labours by the method of following the descent of the womb with the hand, and by the method of removing the after-birth, which have been described. They may be relieved by the application, close up between the legs, of a thick pad of flannel wrung tightly out of hot water. If they are severe a single dose of ten drops of laudanum may be given. This is to be repeated in two or three hours, only if really necessary.