Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1756-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities external link and the Library of Congress. Learn more
Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL
Newspaper Page Text
presses it, alone all through that dreadful. time till the final delivery. The mother, in those days, was not said to be suffering in the ordinary sense, her pain was called "physiolog ical" and "an aid to labor." This mother remembers when she tried to tell the doctor, what she had gone through, his remark: "Oh, you have nothing to complain of. You are as sound as ever you were." But she was not as sound as ever she was. The agony she had gone through had not merely been a dis agreeable accompaniment of her la bor; it had been a dangerous and de structive one. She felt then as all twi light doctors realize now, that her pain was not physiological but in jurious; that it was not an aid, but a hindrance to labor. The shock of childbirth can be cut out by cutting out fear and pain by the twilight sleep. The mother is not left under twilight sleep as in or dinary labor, to fight her fight by her self with assurances that her pains "amount to nothing and will be much worse before it is over." She is put to bed when her pains are about five minutes apart in the dimly lighted twilight room. The more soothing and quieting the room and the kinder the nurses and doc tor, the quicker she win fall into her twilight sleep and the smaller the dose that need be used. After her second injection she will sleep just sound enough to make her entirely forgetful of her pain while allowing her labor to progress normally. Twilight sleep, by cutting out pain, cuts down the use of the high and medium forceps to the very lowest terms possible. It cits down the sick nesses which attend or follow child birth at least 50 per cent It is going to do far to do away with the dis eases of women. In the first place then, twilight sleep means better care at childbirth because, pain removed, childbirth win take better care of itself and births will more often be natural and spontaneous. Twilight sleep means better care at childbirth, because the physician is forced to attend throughout the birth. In and out of the the quiet room go doctor and nurse, one or the other always there. As long as the mother is rambling and incoherent in her talk or responds to the "memory test" in such a way as to show that she forgets almost instantly every pain and everything that happens around her, her condition is satisfac tory as far as practical painlessness is concerned, even though she may sometimes cry out as the birth con tractions occur. If her mind begins to grow clearer, as far as memory goes, she must have another dose. But the doctor must have other things in mind and regulate the dose by them also. If his patient becomes sluggish in her labor when he tests the birth contractions, he must use a very small dose of scopolamin and he must let her come a little nearer con sciousness before he gives it than usual That is what is called indi vidualization, fitting the dose to the exact constitution of each patient. The patient may be a small woman, stiff with advancing age, bearing a first child, and may be therefore very slow with her labor. This is, under pain, a typical high forceps case. Un der twilight sleep, with no pain to take account of, it is a typical case for waiting, for giving a "test of la bor." As long as the doctor listens to the baby's heart and finds it strong he can leave this mother to bring her own child slowly into the world. He encourages here from time to time to stronger efforts, and she always works harder when he tells her to. In the end she wakes like every twilight mother incredulous that it is her own child that is put into her arms, for she has forgotten her long labor and her pain as soon as it was' a over,