Insistence on the importance of medical advice should not be taken to
imply that pregnancy is to be regarded as other than a normal
process. Its dangers are comparatively slight, as we should expect,
since the property of all living matter to reproduce its kind is both
fundamental and essential; the continuance of living creatures in
this world, plants as well as animals, depends upon the Reproductive
Process. And yet, natural as it is, pregnancy may be attended by
complications. Such complications, though happily rare, are to be
guarded against in every case, and that may be most effectually done
if patients are taught to remain under competent medical supervision
from the time of conception until several weeks after the child is
born. This precaution greatly reduces the frequency of annoyances
during pregnancy and also assists materially toward conducting a
birth to a safe conclusion. Moreover, if this advice is followed,
when complications do arise they will be recognized and dealt with
promptly; they will not be permitted to grow more serious until,
perhaps, they may jeopardize the life of the mother or the child or
both.

The initial symptoms of pregnancy are so widely known that in most
instances the prospective mother herself makes the diagnosis shortly
after conception has taken place; but now and then pregnancy advances
for several months unrecognized and is then detected by a physician
who has been consulted on account of symptoms which the patient has
incorrectly attributed to some other condition. On the other hand,
women sometimes suspect that they are pregnant when they are not; and
such mistakes occur because certain symptoms which are implicitly
trusted by the laity as manifestations of pregnancy are occasionally
associated with conditions quite foreign to it. It is clear that one
interested in the matter must know not only what the manifestations