Excerpt from Progressive Medicine, Vol. 4: A Quarterly Digest of Advances, Discoveries and Improvements in the Medical and Surgical Sciences; Diseases of the Digestive Tract and Allied Organs, the Liver and Pancreas; Disease of the Kidneys; Surgery of the Extremities; December, 1909

Influence of Pregnancy on the Stomach. The functional alterations in the digestive organs during pregnancy and parturition have not been investigated so thoroughly as have those occurring during menstruation. Borodenko1 undertook the study of the gastric secretion during preg nancy in a bitch with a Pawlow stomach. The observations were commenced about two months prior to parturition. At the beginning, this animal manifested normal secretory activity and ate heartily of bread, milk, and meat. As the period of parturition approached she took more milk, less meat, and practically no bread. She seemed to develop such a dislike for bread that if some were put into her mouth, she would fight to spit it out at once. At the same time, the quantity, the acidity, and the digestive power of the gastric juice sank until only mucus of alkaline or slightly acid reaction was secreted. Such was the character of the secretion for the two weeks immediately preceding parturition and for several weeks after it. As soon as the bitch ceased to suckle the pups, the amount, acidity, and digestive power of the gastric juice began to increase; and by six weeks after parturition it had re turned to the normal. The desire for other foods than milk returned at the same time, and the animal was eating milk, bread, and meat by the time the secretion had returned to the normal.

Borodenko thinks that the reduction in the amount of inorganic salt in the body is probably the cause of the alterations in gastric secretion. He believes, however, that it is to compensate for this lack of inorganic salt and deficient secretion that the pregnant woman so frequently craves salty or sour substances. We must be cautious about making application of this observation in any extensive practical way. So many pregnant and nursing women have excellent digestion that severe disturbances of secretion are improbable.

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