The womb, a small bag, in shape and size like a pear, situated within the pelvis, between the bladder and rectum, and terminated at its lower part by a soft tube, from three to six inches in length, called the Vagina, begins in pregnancy to be enlarged. About the third month of gestation, the womb is closely locked up, and the menses cease to flow: but in some very rare cases, there is a serous gleet during pregnancy, and in others plethoric, a small sanguineous discharge at the usual menstrual periods. About the fourth or fifth month, the womb is considerably distended, and its upper part ascends above the brim of the pelvis; by the finger it is felt weighty and enlarged, its neck shorter, and raised higher up in the pelvis; and the abdomen begins to be distended above the pubis. About this period also, the mother begins to be sensible of the infant’s motion. For although the heart and arteries of the embryo, from its earliest, rudiments, are in action, yet the other muscular efforts of the fœtus are seldom perceptible by the mother until the third or fourth month, increasing in strength and frequency to the end of pregnancy. Before the end of the fifth month, the womb reaches up half-way between the pubis and navel; in the sixth month, to the navel; in the eighth month, half-way between the navel and stomach; in the ninth and last month, to near the lower part of the stomach, filling up the whole anterior part of the abdomen. The uterine enlargement is then not only perceptible to the hand pressed on the abdomen, but is also obvious to the eye of the spectator. In different women, however, the size of this protuberance is various. Towards the latter stages of pregnancy, the mother’s breasts begin to enlarge, and the circle or areola round the nipples, is of a brown colour.
Nine solar months, or thirty-nine weeks, or 273 days, reckoning from the time of conception, is the usual period of uterine gestation in the human species. But, as conception is often obscure, unless the limited congress of the sexes can be ascertained, we must be guided by probable conjectures respecting the ultimate completion of uterine gestation; in which women themselves often err days and weeks. The usual way of regulating puerperal books, or reckonings, is by going backwards, and computing from the middle space between the last menstruation, and the immediately succeeding menstrual period which should appear, but is interrupted to support the fœtus. Some women are delivered of living children considerably earlier than the end of the ninth month; and others, probably, a little later.