A Short Manual for Monthly Nurses (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. Sketch of the Process of Natural Labour: Signs of Approaching Laboui?Its Division into Stages?Labour- pains?The "Bag of Waters"?Description of First Stage?of Second Stage?of Third Stage. Towards the latter part of the ninth month, certain changes take place which give warning that labour is not far off. One of the earliest of these is sinking of the abdominal swelling; the upper end of the womb, which, at the beginning of the ninth month, reaches as high as the pit of the stomach, now falls a little below that point. Great relief to the breathing follows this alteration, as the pressure upon the organs within the chest is thereby greatly lessened. On the other hand, owing to this change in the position of the womb, certain new inconveniences arise from pressure of its lower portion on the various important parts contained in the pelvis. Thus, walking 18 Process of Labour. becomes more difficult, the bladder requires relieving more frequently, and piles are apt to form. A sign that makes it probable that labour is actually about to commence is the appearance of a slight discharge of mucus, streaked with a little blood. This is spoken of, in the lying-in room, as the " show." Labour is divided, for the sake of description, into three stages. The first of these is called the stage of dilatation of the mouth of the womb; the second lasts from the moment when that dilatation is completed up to the birth of the child; while the third, or last stage, includes the time from the birth of the child to the coming away of the after-birth, or placenta. The so-called pains of labour are, in reality, contractions of the muscular wall of the womb. At the early part of labour they are slight, occur at long intervals, and are felt mostly in the lower part of the f...