William Josephus Robinson - Woman. Her Sex and Love Life

It is therefore necessary to attend to the nipples in due time—to begin at the fifth or sixth month is not too early. If the nipples are sufficiently prominent, little need be done for them except to wash them with a little boric acid solution (one teaspoonful of boric acid to a glass of water) occasionally, and now and then to rub in a little petrolatum, plain or borated. But if the nipples are sunken so that they are below the surface of the breast, or if they are only slightly above the surface of the breast, they must be treated. Gentle traction must be made on them with the fingers three or four times a day. There are only a few cases where persistent manipulation will not develop the nipple and make it stand out prominently.

If the nipple is tender it should be washed two or three times a day with a mixture of alcohol and water; one part of alcohol to three parts of water is sufficient. In washing the nipple with this diluted alcohol it should be dried and a little petrolatum or vaseline rubbed in. This done two or three times a day during the last month or two of the pregnancy will generally produce a good healthy nipple.

The Treatment of Cracked Nipples.If the care of the nipple has been neglected, and it develops cracks or fissures so that the nursing of the child causes the mother severe pain, the nursing should be done through a nipple shield, and in the meantime between the nursings the nipple should be rubbed with the following preparation, which is excellent and which I can fully recommend: thymol iodide, ½ dram; olive oil, ½ ounce. This should be applied every hour to the nipple and covered with a little cotton; before each nursing, however, it must be well washed off with warm water or warm boric acid solution. When the nipples are cracked, the infant's lips should also before nursing be carefully wiped out with boric acid solution. For the baby's mouth contains bacteria which while harmless in themselves may if they get into the cracks of the nipple set up an inflammation of the breast or "mastitis" and cause an abscess. If the cracks are excruciatingly painful, as they sometimes are, it is necessary to give the one breast a rest for twenty-four hours and have the child nurse at the other until the cracks have partially healed.

When It Is Necessary to Dry Up the Breasts.In case of the death of the child, or if the mother for some other reason finds herself unable to nurse, such as in cases where there is absolutely no nipple, instead of the prominence of the nipple there being a deep depression, it becomes necessary to stop the secretion of the milk, or as it is said in common parlance, "to dry up the breasts." In former days, not so very long ago, and the practice is still common enough to call attention to it and to condemn it, the breasts used to be tightly bandaged, or they used to be pumped every few hours. The first causes unnecessary pain and trouble, while the second procedure, the pumping, does exactly the reverse to what it is intended to do. Instead of drying up the breasts it keeps up the secretion. The best thing to do in a case like that is to leave the breasts alone, not to pump them, but just gently support them with a bandage and then in three or four days the secretion of the milk will gradually disappear. There is some discomfort the first twenty-four or forty-eight hours, but if left alone the discomfort is less than if the breasts are manipulated, bandaged or pumped.

Menstruation or Pregnancy While Nursing.Many women do not menstruate and do not become pregnant while they are nursing. Some women will not conceive, no matter how long they may nurse the child—a year or two or longer. And some women take advantage of this fact, and in order to avoid another child they will keep up the nursing as long as possible. In Egypt and other Oriental countries where our means for the prevention of conception are unknown, it is no rare sight to see a child three or four years old interrupting his work or his play and running up to suckle his mother's breast. But not all women have this good luck. Some women (about fifty per cent.) begin to menstruate in the sixth month of lactation, while some become pregnant even before they begin to menstruate. It only too often happens that a woman considering lactation her safeguard omits to use any precautions and finds herself, to her great discomfiture, in a pregnant condition.

When a nursing woman discovers that she is pregnant she should give up nursing at once. The milk is apt to become of poor quality, but even where this is not the case, it is too much for a woman to feed one child in the uterus and one at the breast.

Definition of Word Abortion—Definition of Word Miscarriage—Spontaneous Abortion—Induced Abortion—Therapeutic Abortion—Criminal Abortion—Missed Abortion—Habitual Abortion—Syphilis as Cause of Abortion and Miscarriage—Dangers of Abortion—Abortion an Evil.

The word abortion, used somewhat loosely, signifies the premature expulsion of the fetus; the expulsion of the fetus from the womb before it is viable, i.e., before it is capable of living independently. Used in a stricter sense, the word abortion is applied to the expulsion of the fetus up to the end of the 16th week; to the expulsion of the fetus between the 16th and the 28th week the term miscarriage is applied; and when the expulsion of the fetus takes place after the 28th week, but before full term, we use the term premature labor. The laity does not like the term abortion, as it is under the impression that the term always signifies criminal abortion; it therefore prefers to use the term miscarriage ("miss"), regardless of the time at which the expulsion of the fetus takes place.

When an abortion (or miscarriage) takes place by itself, without any outside aid, we call it spontaneous abortion . When it is brought on by artificial means, whether by the woman herself or by somebody else, we call it induced abortion. When an abortion is induced for the purpose of saving the woman's life, we call it therapeutic abortion; this is considered perfectly legal and proper. But where an abortion is induced merely to save an unmarried mother's reputation, or because the married mother is too poor or too weak to have any more children, or is reluctant to have any (or any more) for any other reason, it is called criminal or illegal abortion, and, if discovered, subjects the mother and the person who produced the abortion to severe punishment.

When the fetus for some reason dies in its mother's womb, it is generally expelled within a few hours or days. Sometimes this is not the case, and the dead fetus is retained for several weeks, or months or even years; to such a phenomenon we apply the term missed abortion. Some women suffer from what might be called the abortion habit; they can hardly ever carry a child to full term, but lose it in the same month or even in the same week of gestation during each pregnancy; we call this habitual abortion. And this habitual abortion may be independent of disease, such, for instance, as syphilis. The terms threatened , imminent and inevitable abortion require no further explanation.

The Causes of Abortion.Outside of the abortion habit, which may be due partly to heredity or be caused by a diseased condition of the lining membrane of the uterus, the principal cause of abortion and miscarriage is syphilis. And when a woman has had two or three or four or more miscarriages in succession we generally assume the cause to be syphilis, and in most cases the assumption will be correct.

When an abortion is performed by an experienced physician, with the observance of the utmost cleanliness (asepsis and antisepsis), then the abortion is accompanied with very little or no danger; but when performed carelessly, by incompetent, non-conscientious physicians and midwives, the operation is fraught with great danger to the patient's health or to her very life. And abortion is a great cause of premature death and chronic invalidism among women. And as long as the people will remain ignorant of the proper means of regulating their offspring, so long will abortion thrive.