THE PRESUMPTIVE SIGNS.--Although women are most often led to suspect
that they are pregnant by symptoms which are of such doubtful
significance that they must be regarded as merely presumptive
evidence, the practical value of these symptoms is attested by the
fact that subsequent developments rarely fail to confirm the
suspicion. Perhaps they prove misleading once or twice in a hundred
cases; the number of mistakes is small, because the diagnosis is
commonly made not from only one of these doubtful signs but from a
group of them. In order of importance the doubtful or presumptive
signs of pregnancy are these: (1) cessation of menstruation, (2)
changes in the breasts, (3) morning sickness, (4) disturbances in
urination.

_The Cessation of Menstruation_.--The failure of menstruation to
appear when it is expected is nearly always the first symptom of
pregnancy to attract attention, and, as a rule, when this happens to
healthy women during the child-bearing period--which usually extends
from the fifteenth to the forty-fifth year--it may be taken to
indicate that conception has occurred. But there are exceptions to
this very good rule. Besides pregnancy we are acquainted with several
conditions that cause temporary suppression of menstruation; and to
understand its significance we must learn something of the menstrual
process itself.

Menstruation is a function of the womb and in all probability is
brought about through the influence of the ovaries. The bleeding,
popularly regarded as the entire menstrual process, is, in fact,
indicative of only one of its stages; the others give rise to no
symptoms whatever. What the stages in the menstrual process are, what