fear from the phenomena of sex. She had been afraid of menstruation
and of marriage, and had at this time almost a phobia for pregnancy
and childbirth. Before long she came to me in terror, telling me that
she had become pregnant. I explained to her that pregnancy is the time
when most women are at their best, that the nausea which is often
troublesome in the beginning is caused merely by a mixing of messages
from the autonomic nerves, which refer new sensations in the womb to
the more usual center of activity in the stomach; and that after the
body has become accustomed to these sensations, most women experience
a greater sense of well-being and peace than at any other time in
life. We had a conversation or two on the subject and everything
seemed to go well for a while.

As it happened, this young woman and her husband came to call on me
one afternoon just before the baby was expected. During the visit she
began to show signs of being in labor. Again she was in terror. Again
I explained the phenomena of labor, telling her that the
womb-contractions are caused by the presence in the blood of a
chemical secretion (hormone) which continues its good work as long as
there is a state of confidence, but which sometimes stops under fear
or apprehension. I explained that these womb-efforts are a peristaltic
movement, a contraction of the upper muscles and a letting go of the
purse-string muscle at the mouth of the womb, and that fear only tends
to tie up this purse-string muscle, making a difficult process out of
one which was intended by Nature to be much more simple. She seemed to
understand and to lose a good deal of her fright.

About six o'clock the couple went home on the street car from the
upper end of Pasadena to the far end of Los Angeles. The next morning
I had a jubilant telephone message from the happy father, announcing
that the boy-baby had arrived at midnight and that, wonderful to
relate, he had come without the mother's experiencing any pain
whatever.

I give this account for what it is worth, without of course contending
that labor could always be as easy as this. It happened that this girl
was a normal, healthy woman and that there were no complications of
any kind in the process of childbirth. A right attitude of mind could
not have corrected any physical difficulty, but it did seem to help
her let go of her fear, which would of itself have caused long and
painful labor.

A patient once told me that