Cheap College Textbooks

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1897 Excerpt: ... PART II. Labor. MECHANISM OF LABOR. THE CLINICAL COURSE OF LABOR. MaNAGEMENT OF NORMAL AND ABNORMAL LABOR. CARE OF THE NEWBORN INFANT. CHAPTER I. MECHANISM OF LABOR. A Thorough understanding of the mechanical phenomena of labor must precede the study of its course and its management. Labor may be denned as the effort of certain expelling forces to overcome certain resisting forces. The chief expelling force is furnished by the uterus. The resisting forces which constitute the obstacle to be overcome are offered by the pelvis and its floor and by the foetus,--the body which it is the aim of the uterus to drive into the world. In great part labor is the result of muscular contraction and of muscular relaxation. One set of muscles contract and relax (the uterine) and another set yield or relax (those of the pelvis and of the pelvic floor). Furthermore, the shape of the foetus and the amount of compressibility it is amenable to must be considered, for were it not for certain movements which it executes the foetal body could not be made to adapt itself to the mechanical forces by which it is gradually propelled along the pelvic canal and thence out of the pelvic outlet. As we have noted, the foetus at term lies in the uterus, under normal conditions, in a state of flexion, surrounded by its membranous envelopes and floating in a greater or less amount of water, which subserves the double purpose of acting, through the membranes, as a dilating wedge and also of protecting the foetus from injury from the application of direct muscular power to its surface. During the course of pregnancy coincident with the growth of the foetus the uterus not only enlarges in bulk, but also in each individual muscular fibre, so that, at term, we have a body which, properly re-enfor...

Cheap Textbooks

• Clinical Supervisor Training: An Interactive CD-Rom Training Program for the Helping Professions
• Guillain-Barre Syndrome - A Medical Dictionary, Bibliography, and Annotated Research Guide to Internet References
• Noses (Spot the Difference)
• Software Engineering with C++ and CASE Tools (Book & CD)
• Adaina Periarga
• Food Chains: Ocean Hardback
• OCR 'AS' Student Handbook: Human Health and Disease Module B
• Digital Timing Macromodeling for VLSI Design Verification (The Springer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science)
• Design of Experiments
• Commidendrum Rotundifolium