he breast.

CHAPTER IX

TWILIGHT SLEEP AND PAINLESS LABOR

In recent years much has appeared in both the popular magazines and
the medical press concerning the so-called "twilight sleep" and other
methods of producing "painless childbirth." Many of these popular
articles in the lay press cannot be regarded in any other light than
as being in bad taste and wholly unfortunate in their method and
manner of presenting the subject; nevertheless, these writings have
served to arouse such a general public interest in the subject of
obstetric anesthetics, that we deem it advisable to devote two
chapters to the brief and concise consideration of the subjects of
pain and anesthetics in relation to the day of labor.

THE PAIN OF LABOR

First, let us briefly consider the question of pain in connection with
childbirth. Many women--normal, natural, and healthy women--suffer but
comparatively little in giving birth to an average-sized baby during
an average and uncomplicated labor. Like the Indian squaw, they suffer
a minimum of pain at childbirth--at least this is largely true after
the birth of the first baby; and so there is little need of discussing
any sort of anesthesia for this group of fortunate women; for at most,
all that would ever be employed in the nature of an anesthetic in such
cases, would be a trifle of chloroform to take the edge off the
suffering at the height or conclusion of labor.

But the vast majority of American mothers do not belong to this
fortunate and normal class of women who suffer so little during
childbirth; they rather belong to that large and growing class of
women who have dressed wrong; who have lived unhealthful and sometimes
indolent lives; who are more or less physically and temperamentally
unfitted to pass through the experiences of pregnancy and the trials
of labor.

The average American woman shrinks from the thought and prospect of
suffering pain; she is quite intolerant with the idea of undergoing
even the few brief moments of physical suffering attendant upon
childbirth. She refuses to contemplate the day of labor in any other
light than that which insures her against all possible pain and other
physical suffering.

And it is just this unnatural and abnormal fear of labor-pains--this
unwomanly dread of the slightest degree of physical suffering--that
has indirectly led up to so much discussion regarding the employment
of "twilight sleep" and other forms of obstetric an