In making ready for the actual arrival of the baby there are several factors to consider, chief among them being the doctor; the nurse; the place where the baby is to be born; the room he is to occupy and an equipment which will facilitate the care of yourself and the baby, at the time of his birth and afterwards.

Of course you have long since placed yourself under a doctor’s care, so that is settled. If you are in the care of a privately engaged physician, he will, in all probability tell you his wishes in regard to your engaging a nurse. She should be satisfactory to both you and the doctor from the standpoint of training and professional fitness as well as her personality. The selection of the nurse, therefore, should be made in coöperation with your doctor. It is wise to engage her during the early part of your pregnancy both to insure your securing the one that you and the doctor want especially, and to have that much of the preparation off your mind. It is usually a good plan to engage the nurse to hold herself in readiness to respond to your call at any time after two weeks before the expected date of your confinement. Quite reasonably, if she is obliged to give up or refuse an engagement in order to hold herself available for you, from a given date, she will do so at your expense. Try to arrange to have the nurse stay with you for six weeks after the baby is born, even though this involves considerable financial sacrifice on your part. Of course if you can afford to keep her still longer, so much the better.

All of this is in case you are in the care of a privately engaged physician and are to have a special nurse. If you are being cared for during pregnancy by doctors and nurses connected with a dispensary, health center or prenatal clinic, they will advise with you about your nursing care at the time of confinement and afterwards.

The next question to consider is whether the baby is to be born at your home or in a hospital. The doctor who is advising you will have his wishes on this subject, too, and as they are entirely in your interest, you will, of course, do as he advises. You will be likely to find that for the birth of the first baby he will want you to go to a hospital, if there is a good one available; also if you have had any symptoms of complications during this pregnancy or difficulty with previous labors.

If you are going to a hospital you or your doctor will make the necessary arrangements about your room, well in advance of the date upon which you expect to go, in order to feel sure that a room will be ready for you.

It sometimes happens, that for a variety of reasons it is nearly or quite impossible for the expectant mother to go to a hospital, or that her doctor is entirely willing that she shall be confined at home. If it is decided that you are to remain at home, it will be possible, with a little planning and effort on your part, to imitate very nearly in your own home the advantages which are offered by a hospital.

You will remember that in the last chapter I mentioned childbed fever as being one of the serious complications, associated with childbirth, that could be prevented by careful work. In the old days, when the importance of cleanliness was not appreciated, this fever was very common in maternity hospitals, but nowadays it seldom occurs in well conducted institutions because the doctors and nurses know how to do clean work and also because they have clean things to work with. So if you are to be attended at home by a good doctor and a good nurse you may make the conditions of your confinement practically ideal by providing a clean room and such an outfit of sterile sheets, towels, dressings and certain other articles as would be available for their use in a hospital.

Suppose we settle the question of the rooms first.

It is a very important one but need not be the bugbear that some people think it is. In all probability you will have no choice as to a room for yourself and will have to use the one you ordinarily occupy. Should you have a choice, however, it will be well to select one that is cool and shady, if the baby is coming during the summer, but one that is bright and sunny for occupancy during most of the year. It should be conveniently near a bathroom, if possible; have an adjoining room for the nurse and one near by for the baby.

The ideal to work toward is: A room with a washable floor with small, light rugs; freshly laundered curtains at the windows but no heavy draperies; a single brass or iron bedstead, about thirty inches high, with a firm mattress, and so placed as to be accessible from both sides and with the foot in a good light, either by day or night; a bedside table and two others (folding card tables are a great convenience); a bureau; a washstand, unless there is a bathroom on the same floor; one or two comfortable chairs, two or three straight chairs and a couch or chaise longue, all of which should be of wood or wicker or covered with freshly laundered chintzes.

Between such a room as this and the one that must be used there may be a wide difference, but it will be worth while to approach this standard as nearly as possible. It is not necessary to make the room bare; in fact, it should be as cheerful and pretty as is compatible with cleanliness. There is no objection to pictures on the walls, but the room should be free from useless, small articles which are likely to be dust catchers, give the nurse unnecessary work and occupy space needed for other things.

The room should be given a thorough house-cleaning about two weeks before the baby is expected. If there is a carpet on the floor that cannot be taken up conveniently, it might be well to have in readiness a large canvas or rubber or an abundance of newspapers to protect the floor near the bed. If the bed is low, the attentions of the doctor and nurse will be made much easier if you have ready four solid blocks of wood, of the same size, upon which to elevate the bed, after the casters have been removed. The blocks should be of such a size as to bring the height of the bed up to thirty inches. And it is important, too, to have a large board, or table leaves, at hand, to slip under the mattress to make it firm, particularly if the bed is soft or sinks in the middle.

The chief requisites for the baby’s room are that it may be well ventilated and easily cleaned. The floor should be of hard wood, or covered with linoleum, in order that it may be wiped up with a damp cloth every day, and the walls should be freshly papered, or, better still, painted. As bright light and glare are bad for the baby the walls would better be of a soft shade, such as grayish green or blue, than white, and there should be dark shades at the windows, in order that the room may be darkened at will.

The furnishings may consist of a brass or enameled crib, with a hair mattress; a chest of drawers; a low straight chair and low rocker, both without arms, and a low table for the baby’s toilet articles. An ordinary kitchen table, enameled and with the legs sawed off, serves admirably. All of the furniture should have smooth, washable surfaces, such as hard wood or enamel, and the walls should be free from pictures, for the baby’s room will have to be kept scrupulously clean and free from dust.

So much for the rooms.

When it comes to the question of providing the outfit to be used in your personal care, the matter of nightgowns and the like will be determined by your tastes and your means, rather than by specific needs. But six or eight nightgowns, a warm bed jacket if the weather is cool, a dressing-gown and a pair of slippers, will probably be enough to keep you fresh and comfortable, so far as these things are concerned, whether you are in a hospital or at home.

But the preparation of necessary dressings and other articles for a home confinement is a different matter and you should learn the wishes of your doctor concerning them.

If his instructions are not specific, you may find that the following lists will be helpful guides in assembling an equipment which will prove adequate to meet the ordinary requirements of a home confinement. Most of the articles listed, or satisfactory substitutes, are to be found in the average household, but they should be gotten together in one place so as to be ready at a moment’s notice.

In addition to these, a certain supply of sterile dressings will be needed. Complete outfits of such dressings, sterilized and ready for use, may be obtained from any one of a number of firms, of which your doctor will know; or they may be prepared by the nurse, or you yourself may prepare and sterilize the following:

One dozen towels.

Three sheets. Five or six dozen sanitary pads, about 10 inches long and 4 inches wide, made of gauze and cotton batting with a top layer of absorbent cotton.

Two to four bed pads, about 30 inches square and 4 inches thick, made of gauze and cotton waste or cotton batting with a top layer of absorbent cotton; or of newspapers covered with muslin.

One pair of leggings made of canton- or outing-flannel, either loose fitting hose reaching to the thighs or a yard square folded diagonally and stitched on one side. See Fig. 16. Five or six dozen gauze sponges, made by folding pieces of gauze 18 inches square into small pads with all raw edges inside.

Two or three dozen gauze squares, 4 inches square.

Four or five dozen cotton pledgets, or wads of absorbent cotton about the size of an egg with the edges drawn together between thumb and finger and twisted into a spiral.

Six pieces of bobbin or narrow tape, 9 inches long, to tie the baby’s cord.

To make these supplies you will need about four pounds of absorbent cotton, 6 or 8 packages of cotton batting, and possibly 40 yards of gauze in addition to cotton flannel for the hose.

In preparing the dressings for sterilization, you may divide them into packages as follows: The sheets in one package; 6 towels in a package; 6 sanitary pads in a package; 2 delivery pads in a package; the gauze squares in two packages; the leggings in one package; the bobbin in one package. The sponges and pledgets should be put up in bags or small pillow cases, 2 or 3 dozen in a bag. Wrap each package in heavy muslin, either new or old, using pieces large enough to well protect the contents from contamination by dust or handling, tie them securely with string and sterilize as follows: Fill a wash boiler about a quarter full of water and fashion a hammock by securely tying a towel or strip of muslin to the handles at each end and allowing it to hang so that the bottom of the hammock is about halfway down in the boiler. As the weight of the dressings makes the hammock sag low in the middle it is a wise precaution to place a rack or support of some kind in the bottom of the boiler, to hold the dressings well above the bubbling water, at the point where they hang lowest. Pile the dressings into the hammock, cover the boiler tightly and keep the water boiling vigorously for an hour; dry the packages in the sun, or by placing them in the oven for a few moments, taking care that they are not loosened or opened, and at the end of twenty-four hours repeat the steaming and drying process, wrap the packages in a clean sheet and put them in a drawer or covered box where they may remain undisturbed until needed. The nail brushes, douche pan and fountain syringe may be wrapped in muslin and sterilized in the same way, or the nurse may boil them when the time comes to use them.

Bed pads made of newspapers offer excellent protection and are, of course, less expensive than those made of cotton. They consist of six or eight thicknesses of newspaper opened out to the full size of the page and covered with a piece of freshly laundered muslin which is folded over the edges and basted in place or held with safety-pins, as shown in Fig. 17. These pads may be made virtually sterile by ironing them on the muslin side with a very hot iron, folding the ironed surface inside without touching it, ironing the outside after it is folded and wrapping the pads in a clean sheet or muslin, also recently ironed, and putting them away with the other dressings, in a place protected from dust.

Baby Clothes. In planning the baby clothes, there are a few general principles to bear in mind that are of considerable importance to the baby’s welfare. His health actually may be injured by having his clothes too warm or not warm enough, and also if they are tight enough to bind or constrict any part of his body or so ample as to form bunches and wrinkles which will make him uncomfortable and restless.

To be entirely satisfactory his clothes should be simple in design and so made as to slip on easily, fit loosely and at the same time smoothly; the materials should be soft, light and porous. Complete outfits of baby clothes may be bought outright, but few expectant mothers are willing to forego the sheer ecstasy of fashioning the little garments themselves, while they dream dreams of the baby who is to wear them. The following list of garments will meet the baby’s needs, and those which you may make are really very simple:

Let us take these up in turn.

The diapers may be of any soft, absorbent, loosely woven material, such as cheesecloth, stockinette, bird’s-eye, cotton flannel or thin Turkish toweling, single or double thickness, according to the weight of the material used, and about 18 inches square when hemmed.

The first bands are of cotton and wool flannel, torn-straight across the width of the material in 6–inch strips and left unhemmed. After the cord separates, this band is usually replaced by a knitted band with shoulder straps.

The shirts should have high necks and long sleeves, come well down over the hips and open all the way down the front. They should be of cotton and wool or silk and wool but not all wool as this is too warm. During very warm weather the shirts should be of thin cotton or silk. It is better to start with size 2 as the smaller size will soon be outgrown.

The petticoat is a very important item in the baby’s wardrobe, for, helping as it does to keep his body evenly warm, it is worn constantly except during very warm weather. It should be a straight little slip, about 27 inches long, hanging from the shoulders, made entirely of flannel, without the broad cotton waistband that has tortured so many babies in days gone by.

The chief purpose of the dresses or slips is to keep the petticoats clean and add to the daintiness of the baby’s attire and they are made, therefore, of very thin, soft cotton or linen material. They are made from the same pattern as the petticoats, except that they have sleeves and these may be set in or cut out in one piece with the rest of the garment like kimono sleeves, as in Fig. 19.

The nightgowns are made like the slips, but of the same part wool flannel as that used for the petticoats.

The petticoats, slips and nightgowns should all open down the back and may be fastened with either tapes or buttons and buttonholes. These fastenings present about equal advantages but there is perhaps a slight preference for buttons as babies sometimes tangle their fingers in tapes or get them in their mouths.

A satisfactory little wrap to use at first may be made from a yard square of soft, warm material with a hood formed of one corner by running tapes through casings.

Patterns for these baby clothes may be obtained from two or three of the large pattern concerns, or you may cut them out, yourself, by using Figs. 18 and 19 as guides, while Fig. 20 shows how the various little garments look when finished.

The question of socks for the new baby is one upon which doctors hold different opinions, some believing that the warmth provided by the petticoat is sufficient; others, that there is an advantage in the extra protection afforded by socks, so you would better learn the wishes of your own doctor in this connection.

The giving of the baby’s daily bath, after he comes, will be greatly simplified if you will assemble beforehand and keep in readiness on a tray or small table, all of the things which are to be used each time. Dainty little outfits for this purpose may be bought, or you may arrange an entirely satisfactory one from jars and bottles to be found in the house, as suggested in Fig. 21.

The above lists of dressings and articles to be used in the care of both mother and baby can be considerably modified, according to one’s tastes and means, and still be satisfactory. They merely represent a fair average of what has been found adequate to meet the usual needs of the mother and baby at home.

It will be a good plan for you to have in readiness, by about the end of the seventh calendar month, all of the dressings and other articles to be used during the confinement. This is in case you should have a premature labor, for which the same dressings are needed as in a normal delivery. The baby’s clothes, however, will be in time if they are ready by the end of the eighth month. A baby born before this time would probably be so frail that he would be wrapped in cotton at first, instead of being dressed in the clothes ordinarily prepared for a fully developed baby.

If you will make such preparations for the baby’s arrival as I have suggested, you will be doing a great deal toward securing his safety and well-being, as well as your own.