s the large
number of miscarriages and still-births proves.

All mothers desire to have healthy, well-formed, intelligent children.
How few conduct themselves in such a manner as to secure a happy
development of their offspring! Puny, deformed, and feeble-minded
infants are daily ushered into the world because of a want of knowledge,
or a sinful neglect of those special measures imperatively demanded in
the ordering of the daily life, by the changed state of the system
consequent upon pregnancy. We shall therefore point out those laws which
cannot be infringed with impunity, and indicate the diet, exercise,
dress, and, in general, the conduct most favorable to the mother and
child during this critical period, in which the wife occupies, as it
were, an intermediate state between health and sickness.

FOOD.

The nourishment taken during pregnancy should be abundant, but not, in
the early months, larger in quantity than usual. Excess in eating or
drinking ought to be most carefully avoided. The food is to be taken at
shorter intervals than is common, and it should be plain, simple, and
nutritious. Fatty articles, the coarser vegetables, highly salted and
sweet food, if found to disagree, as is often the case, should be
abstained from. The flesh of young animals--as lamb, veal, chicken, and
fresh fish--is wholesome, and generally agrees with the stomach. Ripe
fruits are beneficial. The diet should be varied as much as possible
from day to day. The craving which some women have in the night or early
morning may be relieved by a biscuit, a little milk, or a cup of coffee.
When taken a few hours before rising, this will generally be retained,
and prove very grateful, even though the morning sickness be
troublesome. Any food or medicine that will confine or derange the
bowels is to be forbidden. The taste is, as a rule, a safe guide, and it
may be reasonably indulged. But inordinate, capricious desires for
improper, noxious articles, should of course, be opposed. Such longings,
however, are not often experienced by those properly brought up. It is a
curious fact, that the modification in the digestive system during
pregnancy is sometimes so great that substances ordinarily the most
indigestible are eaten, without any inconvenience, and even with
benefit, while the most healthful articles become hurtful, and act like
poison.

As pregnancy advances, particularly after the sixth month, a larger
amount of food, and that of a