Avoid all practices that increase nervous irritability, such as an immoderate use of coflEee or tea; also, operations on the teeth.
Do not indulge in inordinate or morbid appetites. A woman in pregnancy may have unusual aversions or long- ings. It will do no harm to avoid what is repugnant to you; but it may be detrimental to your health to satisfy the longing for slate-pencil, chalk, or other deleterious sub- stances which sometimes women in your condition crave.
But, above all, keep a cheerful mind; do not yield to grief, jealousy, hatred, discontent, or any perversion of disposition. It is true that your very condition makes you more sensitive and irritable; still, knowing this, control your feelings with all your moral strength.
Your husband should be aware, also, that this unusual nervous irritability is a physical consequence of your con- dition, and would therefore be more indulgent and patient, unless he is a brute.
If you believe that strong impressions upon the mother's mind may communicate themselves to the foetus, producing marks, deformity, etc., how much more you should believe that irritability, anger, repinings, spiritual disorders, may be impressed upon your child's moral and mental nature, rendering it weakly or nervous, passionate or morose, or in some sad way a reproduction of your own evil feelings!
FEARS OF DANGER IN BEARING CHILDREN.
These apprehensions, so common in pregnant women, are very seldom well founded. If a woman has no deform- ity of the spine or pelvis; if the distance from hip to hip indicates no unusual narrowness; if, as she stands, she sees that she is as well formed as the majority of women; and if she knows of no objective reasons herself, — she should
