s Connection
Between Mother and Child--Cases Under Author's Observation--Effects
on Offspring--Advice to Pregnant Women--Germ-plasm of Chronic
Alcoholic--A Glass of Wine and the Spermatozoa--False Statements--
Cases of Violence and Accidents During Pregnancy.

By prenatal care we understand the care taken during pregnancy before
the child is born. Used in a wider sense the term includes the care
which both parents should take of themselves even before the child is
conceived.

Of course the father and the mother should be in the best possible
physical and mental condition during the time of conception and even
before conception, and the mother should take the very best care of
herself--she should be in good health and as calm a spirit as possible
during the entire period of gestation. For the general health and
condition of the mother does influence the child.

And still I feel impelled to say something which may meet with violent
opposition in some quarters. The trouble is, there are too many
half-baked scientists in our midst. They spread misleading information
and the public at large is too apt to take every statement that has a
quasi-scientific seal for something absolute, for something positive,
for something that admits of no exceptions.

I have seen so much misery caused by wrong prenatal care teaching and
by the foolish, exaggerated ideas on the subject, that I consider it
my duty to say something in order to counteract those erroneous
notions. I consider it my special mission to destroy error, mysticism
and superstition. And the prenatal care teaching as imparted by some
unfortunately partakes of all three of the above.

Of course, I repeat, the mother should try to be in the best possible
condition while she is carrying the child. Nevertheless, it is foolish
to imagine if the mother is not quite well, or is worried about
something, or has a fit of anger, that it is invariably going to be
reflected on the child. The child, as we know, has no nervous
connection whatever with the mother, and it is only very violent or
prolonged shocks that are apt to have an injurious influence.

I know of children that were carried by their mothers in anger and in
anguish from the day of conception to the day of delivery. And still
they were born perfectly normal. I know of a child whose mother was
suffering the most hellish tortures of jealousy during the entire
period of pregnancy, and still the child was born