There are many branches of manufacturing industry in which women ought not to be employed at all, because the work these branches involve is injurious to women’s health, and, in especial, to the functions of their sexual life; there are many other branches of industry in which women should only be employed if certain specific precautions have been taken, and if certain regulations are rigidly enforced. But at present economic pressure forces women into these occupations also, and the necessary precautions and regulations are too often ignored. Many women are engaged in the most exhausting and offensive occupations, and have to continue at work even in the later stages of pregnancy. It may even happen that the capitalist pays a pregnant woman a smaller wage than his other women workers, notwithstanding the fact that her needs are greater. It will readily be understood how disastrous may be the influence of this upon the unborn child. The children of women who continue at work during pregnancy are born earlier and are weaker than the children of other women. Occupations especially dangerous for the unborn child are those in which the mother has to sit for long hours at a time in a bent posture; those in which she has to stand continuously; those in which she works in contact with mercury, phosphorus, aniline, iodine, lead, or nicotine. In women who continue to work during pregnancy, miscarriage, premature labour, and still-births are commoner than in other women. With regard to the question of the prohibition of women’s work during pregnancy and lactation, another point has to be considered. If the woman remains away from work throughout the whole period of pregnancy and lactation, not only does she lose her place with her employer, but also she loses to a large extent her previously acquired skill and aptitude for work. It results from this that the woman is no longer able to work when work again becomes possible to her. If the mother of a young infant is forced to engage in wage-labour, the consequences are extremely disastrous to the child, for its care is inevitably neglected. The proletarian mother neglects her child in many instances not, as is so often believed, because of the lack of maternal affection, but simply because she is forced to go out to work.