People will persist in imagining that uncivilized women were always able to feed their children in natural fashion. Very often they were obliged to seek the help of another mother, and, when that was not forthcoming, the baby died. It is quite true that our adaptation to modern conditions of life, nerve-stress, combined with overwork for women in towns and industrial districts, has caused breast-feeding to be less common than it was in the past. But here again the way of life is not back to nature, which is impossible because we cannot at a blow destroy industrialism and the towns――but onwards, to greater knowledge. Instead of bullying the mothers and telling them it is wicked not to feed their babies at the breast, let them know how, by pre-natal care of health and strength, by diet, by deliberate nerve-control, they can feed their babies with comfort and delight and without detriment to their health and the work which they must necessarily do――or even to their beauty. Here again, if choice is free and the child therefore ardently desired, there is more chance of success with breast-feeding. And knowledge of the chemical constituents of cow’s milk and patent foods as compared with human milk is more likely to induce the modern mother to suckle her child than volumes of abuse or sentimental twaddle. Then as to the hygiene of pregnancy. Could our mothers have taught us about the different food-values, about protein, nitrogenous foods, calcium from the green foods for teeth and bones, avoidance of too many albuminous foods? Knowledge of what diet can do to help us in pregnancy and our children in early youth is in its infancy, but it is there, none the less. Shall we fling it aside and return to pure instinct? What massage and remedial exercises have taught can be applied to our bodies during pregnancy and after childbirth. It is probable that closer study of the functions of the muscles of the back and the abdomen would enable us to teach women to exercise and control them in a way that would make childbirth almost painless, and the recovery of poise and activity afterwards more rapid and more thorough. Under present conditions, muscles that are often too rigid or too feeble expand and never recover their tone; others――the back muscles, it may be――go out of use temporarily and similarly do not recover. In the middle-class woman laziness is often the cause of difficult confinements and poor recovery of the figure; in the working mother a too speedy return to work which is too hard and does not exercise the body harmoniously; in both the ignorance which leads to wrong kinds of nourishment during pregnancy, and fear of doing harm to the child which leads to rigid and over-careful movement, are responsible for a good many troubles. Psychological effects may be serious. Most women develop during pregnancy sensitiveness and a timidity protective to the child. From this the very fertile mother has no opportunity to recover.