Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 | Page 8

of all we need a higher standard of
physical motherhood." The problem of infantile mortality, he declares
(page 259), is not one of sanitation alone, or housing, or indeed of
poverty as such, "but is mainly a question of motherhood."
The fundamental need of the pregnant woman is rest. Without a large
degree of maternal rest there can be no puericulture.[4] The task of
creating a man needs the whole of a woman's best energies, more
especially during the three months before birth. It cannot be
subordinated to the tax on strength involved by manual or mental labor,
or even strenuous social duties and amusements. The numerous
experiments and observations which have been made during recent
years in Maternity Hospitals, more especially in France, have shown
conclusively that not only the present and future well-being of the
mother and the ease of her confinement, but the fate of the child, are
immensely influenced by rest during the last month of pregnancy.
"Every working woman is entitled to rest during the last three months
of her pregnancy." This formula was adopted by the International

Congress of Hygiene in 1900, but it cannot be practically carried out
except by the coöperation of the whole community. For it is not enough
to say that a woman ought to rest during pregnancy; it is the business of
the community to ensure that that rest is duly secured. The woman
herself, and her employer, we may be certain, will do their best to cheat
the community, but it is the community which suffers, both
economically and morally, when a woman casts her inferior children
into the world, and in its own interests the community is forced to
control both employer and employed. We can no longer allow it to be
said, in Bouchacourt's words, that "to-day the dregs of the human
species--the blind, the deaf-mute, the degenerate, the nervous, the
vicious, the idiotic, the imbecile, the cretins and epileptics--are better
protected than pregnant women."[5]
Pinard, who must always be honored as one of the founders of eugenics,
has, together with his pupils, done much to prepare the way for the
acceptance of this simple but important principle by making clear the
grounds on which it is based. From prolonged observations on the
pregnant women of all classes Pinard has shown conclusively that
women who rest during pregnancy have finer children than women
who do not rest. Apart from the more general evils of work during
pregnancy, Pinard found that during the later months it had a tendency
to press the uterus down into the pelvis, and so cause the premature
birth of undeveloped children, while labor was rendered more difficult
and dangerous (see, e.g., Pinard, _Gazette des Hôpitaux_, Nov. 28,
1895, Id., _Annales de Gynécologie_, Aug., 1898).
Letourneux has studied the question whether repose during pregnancy
is necessary for women whose professional work is only slightly
fatiguing. He investigated 732 successive confinements at the Clinique
Baudelocque in Paris. He found that 137 women engaged in fatiguing
occupations (servants, cooks, etc.) and not resting during pregnancy,
produced children with an average weight of 3,081 grammes; 115
women engaged in only slightly fatiguing occupations (dressmakers,
milliners, etc.) and also not resting during pregnancy, had children with
an average weight of 3,130 grammes, a slight but significant difference,
in view of the fact that the women of the first group were large and

robust, while those of the second group were of slight and elegant build.
Again, comparing groups of women who rested during pregnancy, it
was found that the women accustomed to fatiguing work had children
with an average weight of 3,319 grammes, while those accustomed to
less fatiguing work had children with an average weight of 3,318
grammes. The difference between repose and non-repose is thus
considerable, while it also enables robust women exercising a fatiguing
occupation to catch up, though not to surpass, the frailer women
exercising a less fatiguing occupation. We see, too, that even in the
comparatively unfatiguing occupations of milliners, etc., rest during
pregnancy still remains important, and cannot safely be dispensed with.
"Society," Letourneux concludes, "must guarantee rest to women not
well off during a part of pregnancy. It will be repaid the cost of doing
so by the increased vigor of the children thus produced" (Letourneux,
_De l'Influence de la Profession de la Mère sur le Poids de l'Enfant_,
Thèse de Paris, 1897).
Dr. Dweira-Bernson (_Revue Pratique d'Obstétrique et de Pédiatrie_,
1903, p. 370), compared four groups of pregnant women (servants with
light work, servants with heavy work, farm girls, dressmakers) who
rested for three months before confinement with four groups similarly
composed who took no rest before confinement. In every group he
found that the difference in the average weight of the child was
markedly in favor of the women who