The rest which follows the close of labor, rest of body and mind, can be understood only when experienced, no words can explain it. The labor is over, all that has been told you of terror and danger has not been yours, and the pain is all forgotten in the joy that a child is born, is yours, and you hug it to your heart for very joy. Cherish it, dear mother, rejoice in it, and train it to become a truly great child of a noble mother. CHAPTER XVII. SURROUNDINGS AND AFTER-CARE OF THE MOTHER. Maternity Should Have the Largest and Brightest Room in the House.—It is Her Coronation Room.—Simplicity of Labor with Healthy Women.—Science Has Reduced Risk to the Minimum.—The Exaltation of Motherhood.—The Rest after Labor.—How to Prepare a Bed for the Parturient.—Deliverance of Mother from Friends and Visitors.—Sanitary Pads.—Regular Nursing.—Undisturbed Sleep.—No Binder Necessary for Mother.—The Care of the Breasts.—Diet.—Sitting Up.—Six or Eight Weeks Needed to Regain Normal Condition.—The Use of the Douche.—Sore Nipples.—The Bearing of Children not to be Dreaded.—The Joy of Motherhood. The room chosen for the lying-in should be as large and warm and sunshiny as any room in the house. It should be far enough from the living rooms to be quiet the greater part of the day, and yet not so far as to feel isolated. The centre of the home at this time is the little mother, and the room in which she rests after her perilsome journey is the throne room, where love and homage crown her queen, and welcome right royally the little prince or princess, who has come to share her reign. Nothing unpleasant should be allowed to enter this room, for the happy and quick getting up of the patient depends much upon the smooth running of the home machinery. One hour of mental disturbance, may add days to the lying-in, and one discordant person can make more unrest and trouble than all the others combined can overcome. Therefore look well to the helpers in the home, that they be in harmony with the home-keeper. Had we to deal with labor in its simplicity, as a physiological act, natural and uncomplicated with faulty living and semi-invalidism, the physician’s and attendant’s duties in the days following delivery, could be expressed in few words; but owing to the results of our boasted civilization and high pressure living, which too often in its mad rush has robbed womankind of the sturdy physique, and sound brawn and endurance so much needed in the everyday emergencies of life, she comes to the ordeal of maternity badly fitted for its strain, and with little or no reserve power, either to carry her through the hours of incomparable pain, or to aid in her restoration in the days following. In other words, labor has come to be pathological or abnormal, instead of physiological or normal, in the majority of cases, and as such, the attendant cares have come to be correspondingly onerous.