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Updated: May 9, 2025
Any of these things make a baby cry, for it has no other means by which it can express disapproval. So long as the breasts contain colostrum the nursings should be at least three hours apart during the day; at night it is preferable not to disturb the mother at all. As soon as milk appears the interval is usually shortened to two hours during the day.
None of the changes in the breasts are absolutely characteristic of pregnancy; even the secretion of colostrum has been noted in association with various other conditions.
The nipples also become enlarged, more elongated, and somewhat erect. Surrounding the nipple is the areola; this becomes darker in color. In most women a drop of watery fiuid, the so-called colostrum, may be squeezed out from the nipple at the end of the third month of pregnancy. The signs of pregnancy are divided into the presumptive, the probable, and the positive.
Moreover, the best interests of the infant demand that it be kept warm and left undisturbed while becoming accustomed to its new environment. There is no immediate need of food; and if there were, nature does not fit the mother to supply it, for at this time the breasts contain merely small quantities of colostrum.
This is the first proof of the importance of fatty matters for the alimentation of babes. Let us turn to the second. At birth, when the milk is still in a state of colostrum, the fluid contains a variable quantity of albumen coagulable by heat, much less caseine, and an excess of butter and sugar.
Before very long it is possible to squeeze from the breasts a fluid which many persons believe to be milk, though it is really colostrum, a substance that resembles milk but very slightly. At first colostrum is a clear, white fluid, but in the later months of pregnancy it becomes yellow and cloudy.
The most significant alteration, however, occurs in the cells which line the glands; these increase in size at first; and then, by a process of cell division, their number multiplies. After pregnancy has advanced six to eight weeks these cells begin to elaborate the thin, watery fluid called colostrum.
Furthermore, as a sign of pregnancy the presence of colostrum is totally deprived of value in the case of a woman who has recently nursed an infant, for a small quantity of milk or colostrum often remains in the breasts for months after the infant is weaned.
If, for example, menstruation has previously been regular and then a period is missed, the patient has good reason to suspect she is pregnant; if the next period is also missed and meanwhile the breasts have enlarged, the nipples darkened, and the secretion of colostrum has begun, it is nearly certain that she is pregnant; whether morning sickness and the desire to pass the urine frequently are present is of no importance.
Contrary to popular belief, the quantity of colostrum is not prophetic of the character of the milk; there is no ill-omen, to be sure, in a plentiful secretion, but a meager one is quite as likely to be followed by successful lactation. At present we are unable to predict by any means either the quantity or the quality of the milk which a prospective mother will produce.
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