hould you fear that the unpredictable
appearance of twins will unbalance your baby budget, you can, for a
moderate sum, insure yourself against this chance with many of the
larger insurance companies. The insurance must be taken out before the
existence of twins in the uterus can be diagnosed--that is, in the first
two or three months of gestation. One twin birth occurs to about 90
single births, one triple to about 8000, and one quadruple to about
650,000. In all medical literature only about 30 cases of quintuplets
have been recorded. Multiple births are not only rare, but the babies
are often so delicate that they are extremely difficult to rear. We can
be well pleased if our first pregnancy eventuates in a single healthy
baby of either sex.

All the reasons for wanting the first child apply in the case of the
second, and to them are added more. What was in the first instance
simply a hope and a vague if powerful urge has now grown into a
conscious desire, based on the self-knowledge and experience gained from
loving and looking after the first child. We have had a real taste of
the joys of home and family building, and now nothing short of economic
catastrophe is likely to stop us from building higher. I assume, of
course, that the mother did not encounter any severe difficulties in
giving birth to her first child. If she was in good medical hands, she
probably did not, though certain unusual formations of the pelvis may
have made her labor longer than usual. I do not say more painful,
because medical science has found ways of minimizing the pains of
childbirth. Even if it was found necessary to deliver the first child by
Caesarean operation, a woman in normal health can without danger bear at
least two children by this method. And at the very least a family should
include two children.

Quite apart from the parents' natural desire to go on expressing their
mutual love by building a full-voiced home on the foundations laid by
the first child, it soon becomes apparent that this first child, for the
sake of its own social and moral development, needs a little brother or
sister. It needs companionship. It needs to share its toys and its
parents. Otherwise it will tend to grow self-centered. By being too much
with grown-ups it may become moody and negative.

After the question, "Can you afford it?"--and I sincerely hope you
can--the next question facing the mother who wants a second child is,
"When can I bear it with