And therefore the reason why some women have more
pain in their labour than others, proceeds from their having the mouth
of the matrix more full of nerves than others. The best way to remove
those difficulties that occasion hard pains and labour, is to show first
from whence they proceed. Now the difficulty of labour proceeds either
from the mother, or child, or both.
From the mother, by reason of the indisposition of the body, or from
some particular part only, and chiefly the womb, as when the woman is
weak, and the mother is not active to expel the burden, or from
weakness, or disease, or want of spirits; or it may be from strong
passion of the mind with which she was once possessed; she may also be
too young, and so may have the passage too narrow; or too old, and then,
if it be her first child, because her pains are too dry and hard, and
cannot be easily dilated, as happens also to them which are too lean;
likewise those who are small, short or deformed, as crooked women who
have not breath enough to help their pains, and to bear them down,
persons that are crooked having sometimes the bones of the passage not
well shaped. The colic also hinders labour, by preventing the true
pains; and all great and active pains, as when the woman is taken with a
great and violent fever, a great flooding, frequent convulsions, bloody
flux, or any other great distemper.
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