THE SIGNS OF PREGNANCY AND THE DATE OF CONFINEMENT

The Positive Signs--The Probable Signs--The Presumptive Signs: The
Cessation of Menstruation; Changes in the Breasts; Morning Sickness;
Disturbances in Urination--The Duration of Pregnancy--The Estimation
of the Date of Confinement--Prolonged Pregnancy.

Many puzzling questions occur to the woman who is about to become a
mother. Most of these questions are reasonable and natural, and
should be frankly answered; but a false conventionality has--until
recently, at least--forbidden any open discussion of facts connected
with childbirth. The inevitable result has been that, without
experience of their own to guide them, prospective mothers have
sought advice from older women, whose experience was at best very
narrow, and whose views were often biased by tradition. Or,
distrusting such sources of information, they have consulted
technical medical works which they could not understand. Either of
these methods is very likely to result in misinformation and to cause
unnecessary anxiety. Yet no one need be alarmed by a plain, accurate
account of Nature's plan to provide successive generations of human
beings. Some trustworthy knowledge of a process so fundamental should
be part of every person's education; it is especially helpful to
women who are pregnant because it affords a rational basis for
hygienic measures which they should adopt. A popular work, however,
no matter how frank and helpful it may be, will not enable one to
dispense with professional advice. For the prospective mother no
counsel is more important than this: _Put yourself at once under
the care of a physician_.