Читать книгу The Mother and Her Child - Lena K. Sadler - Страница 77

Blood-pressure is a term used to indicate the actual pressure of the blood stream against the walls of the blood vessels. The blood-pressure machine tells us the same story about our circulatory mechanism, that a steam gauge does about a high-pressure boiler (See Fig. 4). The normal blood-pressure varies according to the age of the patient. For instance, the normal pressure of a young person, say up to twenty years of age, runs from 100 to 120 millimeters of mercury; and then, as the age advances, the blood-pressure increases in direct ratio; for every two years additional age the blood-pressure increases about one point—one millimeter.

The average pregnant woman starts in her pregnancy with a blood-pressure of say, 125 millimeters, but as pressure symptoms increase, and as constipation manifests itself, and as the circulating fluids are further burdened with the toxins which are eliminated from the child, the blood-pressure normally increases to about 140 mm., and later, possibly to 150 mm. If the pressure goes no higher, we are not alarmed, for we have come to recognize a blood-pressure of 140 as about the normal pressure of the pregnant woman.

There are a number of factors which enter into the raising of the blood-pressure. For instance, at any time during the pregnancy, if the eliminative organs of the mother are doing inefficient work, if she falls a victim to a torpid liver, diseased kidneys, decreased skin elimination, or sluggish bowels, then, with the added and extra excretions from the child, there is superimposed upon the mother far more than the normal amount of eliminative work—and then, because of improper and incomplete elimination, the blood-pressure is increasingly raised.