Preparing the Girl for a Successful Pregnancy

The subject of care for the expectant mother may not be strange to many women readers. Yet to have more of it is not without benefit, especially since most of those who have treated it, as far as I recall, confined their treatment to the period of pregnancy itself. The truth is that preparation for pregnancy and for bearing healthy children, while preserving the health of the mother who bears them, begins at an early stage before pregnancy occurs — indeed, no little time before marriage itself.

The intelligent, aware mother keeps before her eyes, as she raises her daughter, the fact that this girl is destined above all else for a hard and noble task: the task of carrying children and giving birth to them. Therefore you will see her working to prepare her for this task, and watching over her rearing and her care, that she may perform it as well as it can be performed.

What most deserves attention and concern in the girl's development is the stage of puberty; and upon the care and understanding devoted to it depends much of the ease of pregnancy and its success in the future.

This stage is distinguished by the changes that come over the reproductive organs, the internal and the external alike. And it is not unlikely that during it the cornerstone of lasting diseases may be laid. For it is established that the girl's absorption in study, the confinement of her mind to the perfecting of her personality, her being compelled to merge into social life before her time, then her turning, very often, to the reading of books beyond her grasp, or of stories unsuited to her age, and finally her neglect of physical exercise and of walks in the open air — all of this makes the mind in the adolescent girl grow at the expense of the body, and above all at the expense of the reproductive organs, which require much of her vitality at this stage in order to attain firmness and stability.

If these natural inclinations in the girl, and these obligations which the complexities of social life impose, are not watched — if they are not watched, controlled, and given sound direction during the stage of puberty — the girl may in consequence be exposed to diseases and states of weakness that will have the gravest consequences for her health and the soundness of her child, in pregnancy above all.

The most important of these diseases arising from an unsound stage of puberty is what they call the pains of the monthly period, dysmenorrhea — pains in the back and the abdomen — then a deficiency in the growth of the womb, a deficiency that may increase until it makes pregnancy impossible, or in any case fraught with dangers. Physicians call this deficiency hypoplasia. And a third disease may result, known as chlorosis, which shows itself in a greenish pallor spreading over the girl's complexion; among its symptoms also are a weak appetite for food, indigestion, and a general decline of the strength. It causes pains at the coming of the monthly period, and may stop menstruation altogether. During the menstrual period certain precautions must be taken. That does not mean that the girl should keep to her bed or change her accustomed way of life. What matters is that she avoid excess and extremes: she should not strain herself with hard tasks and tiring exercises; she should seek moderation in sports, in dancing, and the like; and she should avoid exposure to cold in light clothing, and keep away from everything apt to arouse her sexual feelings — whether by licentious reading or the watching of fanciful films, or — and this is the most important — by slipping into bad company, whether of young men or of young women.

O mother! Watch well over your daughter at this stage, the stage of puberty, and remember that you perhaps were not exposed to such problems as we have set forth. And there is no doubt that your mother and your grandmother were not exposed to them. For life in those days was primitive and simple; in it woman lived a natural life free of complication. She conceived and gave birth in the best of health, and there was no danger except the ravages of the microbes, which caused diseases or deaths in mother or child through the ignorance of the midwife. But today, when conditions in this field have greatly improved with the increase in the number of obstetricians and of graduate midwives — today, when we have removed as far as possible the dangers of the microbes — new problems rise before us.

These problems were created by our passage from the simple life to the complicated life of the city; and these problems, too, are what cause the organic diseases of which we spoke above. It is well known that the Arab girl today goes out into society: she studies, she reads, she takes exercise, she goes to the cinema, and she mixes with many people in her daily life. Therefore it is the duty of mothers and fathers to

give their daughters true care and to keep from them the dangers lurking in the husks of this modern civilization. That will not be done by returning them to the cage — that is impossible, and undesirable. It will be done by watching over them with the vigilance of the wise and prudent, above all in the period of puberty, whose far-reaching effects on the girl's life as a mother who will conceive and give birth in the future we have pointed out. After that, attention should be given to the good choice of a husband; and I shall speak of this choice only insofar as it concerns pregnancy and childbirth.

It is observed that the husband of extraordinary bulk, unusually broad of bone, may beget children of such size that his wife will not escape danger at their birth if she does not match him in bulk. For this reason parents should attend to this point, and consider the proportion between the frames of the two spouses, before concerning themselves with social position, the dowry, the "shabka," and the like.

And far more important than this is that the prospective husband should not be one of those addicted to alcohol. There are cases proving that the children of addicts are for the most part weak, puny, and feeble-minded, or among those afflicted with the bending sickness — those who "fall on the hour," as the common people say. In the children of the addict there is a predisposition to inflammation of the kidneys, and an inclination toward indulgence in narcotics. And these baneful symptoms may be transmitted by heredity even to the third generation.