Читать книгу The Mother and Her Child - Lena K. Sadler - Страница 47

Owing to the increasing pressure exerted upon the intestines, most expectant mothers experience a tendency to sluggish bowels and constipation. This unpleasant symptom is usually increased during the later months.

In the first place, a definite time must be selected for bowel action. It may ofttimes be necessary, and it is far less harmful, to insert a glycerine suppository into the rectum, than to get into the enema habit. The injection of a large quantity of water into the lower bowel will mechanically empty it; but the effects are atonic and depressing as regards future action.

Before we take up the advisability of taking laxatives let us consider what foods will aid in combating constipation. The following list of foods are laxative in their action and will be found helpful in overcoming the constipation so often associated with pregnancy:

1. All forms of sugar, especially fruit sugar, honey, syrup, and malt. All the concentrated fruit juices. Sweet fruits, such as figs, raisins, prunes, fruit jellies, etc.

2. All sour fruits, and fruit acids: Apples, grapes, gooseberries, grape fruit, currants, plums, and tomatoes.

3. Fruit juices, especially from sour fruits: Grape juice, lemonade, fruit soup, etc.

4. All foods high in fat: Butter, cream, eggs, eggnog, ripe olives, olive oil, nuts—especially pecans, brazil nuts, and pine nuts.

5. Buttermilk and koumiss.

6. All foods rich in cellulose: Wheat flakes, asparagus, cauliflower, spinach, sweet potatoes, green corn and popcorn, graham flour, oatmeal foods, whole-wheat preparations, bran bread, apples, blackberries, cherries, cranberries, melons, oranges, peaches, pineapples, plums, whortleberries, raw cabbage, celery, greens, lettuce, onions, parsnips, turnips, lima beans, and peanuts.

White bread should be tabooed, and in its place a well-made bran bread should be used. Two recipes for bran bread follow, one sweetened and containing fruit, the other unsweetened: